Solar Turbine

Factor e Live Distillations – Part 8 – Solar Power Generator

It has been almost a month since we started the Factor e Live Distillations series and the 1000 True Fans – 1000 Global Villages campaign. We have gathered 24 True Fans so far. We have 2 more episodes to go – on the open source product development...

Steam Age meets the Digital Age: Open Source Steam Engine

No, this is not the steam engine that we’re working on… First off I should introduce myself, I’m Nick and I’ve been watching OSE’s efforts for the last year or so and thinking along tangential lines for a while longer. After...

Solar Turbine Convergence Breakthroughs

In a historic convergence of December, 2008 – Solar Turbine work of OSE merged with a UK linear concentrator development team. Both teams have arrived at essentially the identical design, down to critical details – for a breakthrough, low...

Solar Turbine Concept Up for Review

We have posted an updated conceptual drawing of the solar turbine collectors and reflectors at the OSE wiki. Please study the drawings and comment here or at the wiki. Please pass this on to others who may be knowledgeable about the topic.  A discussion...

Solar Turbine Brochure – Community Supported Manufacturing

We are taking the Solar Turbine project to the next level. Nick Raaum is our Project Manager, and he will be arriving here in about 2 weeks. He has put in his 2 week’s notice for leaving his post as a performance engineer in a coal-fired power plant....

Solar Turbine – Project Manager Recruited

Solar electricity generation remains a hot priority for us – as one of the essential parts of the Global Village Construction Set. We are taking the solar turbine project to the next level – a working prototype, 3kW of electrical production...

The Bell Tolls for PV

– Guest post by Benjamin Gatti from our Solar Turbine Google Group. This post features an eye-opening perspective on photovoltaic (PV) panels. The claim is: it is very unlikely that PV will ever be cheap. Personally, I’ve been following PV...

Solar Turbine – Commentary on Results

Friends, the latest developments on the Solar Turbine project, outside of the documentation clips in Factor e Live 6 and Factor e Live 7, are ambitious. We are presently leaning to mirrors and a modern, high-recirculation ratio uniflow steam engine as...

Factor e Live – Part 6 – Solar Turbine Beginnings

Here is video documentation for making the first two parabolic reflectors for the Solar Turbine project: The Solar Turbine Convergence is here – Elliot and I are continuing on the next reflector version, and we are picking up Stuart today. We’d...

Solar Breakthrough

The trick for making solar thermal electrical generation a reality is to reduce the cost of the solar thermal collector system to absolute minimum. Why? If one familiarizes oneself with the costs of putting such a system together – it becomes apparent...