ENERGY FLASHES

By the Mother Earth News editors

Issue #79 - January/February 1983

A WIND TURBINE THAT WORKS BEST WHEN THERE'S NO WIND AT ALL . . . that's how engineers describe the prototype 40-kilowatt, 200-meter-tall solar chimney now producing power in Manzanares, Spain. The air beneath a two-meter-high, 40,000-square-meter transparent plastic skirt surrounding the column is heated by the sun to 20°C above ambient temperature . . . and is sucked by convection past a gigantic inverted funnel at the base of the smokestack-like chimney and into the tube at speeds as high as 60 MPH. A four-bladed rotor, installed a few meters up inside the wind tunnel, then churns out current for a regional utility . . . and the warmed area beneath the wide cover is used for growing vegetables!

AND HERE'S YET ANOTHER INNOVATIVE WIND MACHINE! Inventor Donald E. Lipfert has received a patent on a rooftop-mounted domestic power plant that has no props or rotating turbines whatsoever. Instead, wind is directed through a housing at a flexible membrane . . . and the flapping material actuates a generator! The experimental device is said to be capable of producing as much current as — and may someday be marketed for only one-fourth the cost of — a "conventional" windplant of the same size.

JUDGE KEEPS REAGAN ADMINISTRATION FROM HOLDING UP SOLAR BANK: The administration had fired the staff of the Solar Bank and attempted to withhold the $21 million allocated by Congress for the project (which was created to provide low-interest loans to families that install solar systems or take energy-conserving measures in their homes). Now, thanks to a federal judge, the administration has been ordered to start making those funds available.

A NEW 60-MILLION-GALLON-PER-YEAR ETHANOL PLANT IN SOUTH POINT, OHIO . . . a 40-million-gallon facility in Loudon, Tennessee . . . and a 20-million-gallon factory near Franklin, Kentucky will boost national production of fuel alcohol to an estimated 600 million gallons annually. But the trend toward large, centralized production facilities is worrying many ethanol industry experts, who point to the high cost (and fuel consumed as a result) of shipping grain to — and freighting alcohol from — the plants. A network of small- to medium-sized regional distillers would be more efficient, they say.

THE NEXT "WORLD'S LARGEST" SOLAR ELECTRIC GENERATING FACILITY is under construction in the Mojave Desert, virtually right next door to "Solar One", the 10-megawatt plant that currently holds that title (and the subject of an entry in MOTHER NO. 76's Energy Flashes). When it's completed, the new giant will use 1.2 million square feet of parabolic trough collectors to heat fluid to 500°F. The hot liquid will, in turn, power turbines to produce a full 15 megawatts for Southern California Edison. Meanwhile, we've heard that SCE is seeking proposals from private industry to build yet another plant — to be called "Solar 100" — that would turn out an impressive 100 megawatts!

WISCONSIN POWER AND LIGHT HAS PAID $2.5 MILLION FOR A MAJORITY INTEREST IN WINDWORKS . . . the pioneering windplant and inverter manufacturer that was founded by Hans Meyer (with the sponsorship and encouragement of R. Buckminster Fuller) way back in 1970. A strange partnership? Perhaps . . . but Windworks products can now be marketed more extensively, and we're also heartened by this statement from the head of WP & L's Strategic Planning department: "We're very excited about this, not only because Windworks has a good earnings potential but because, ultimately, we see society as moving toward renewable, sustainable sources of energy."

A LANDMARK JUDICIAL DECISION REGARDING "SUN RIGHTS" has been handed down by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which recently recognized the right of a solar-home owner to seek relief from the obstruction of sunlight by a building newly erected on a neighbor's lot. The court said that in earlier years "sunlight was valued only for aesthetic enjoyment or as illumination. Since artificial light could be used . . . loss of sunlight was at most a personal annoyance." But these days, states the ruling, "Access to sunlight as an energy source is of significance to both the landowner who invests in solar collectors and to a society which has an interest in developing alternative sources of energy." The judgment has no direct effect on other states' laws, but is likely at least to influence decisions in similar cases.

VOLKSWAGEN REALLY DID IT THIS TIME: A 1,430-MPG CAR! The "Sparmobile" — a lightweight, streamlined three-wheeler designed in Germany by a team of VW engineers — ran at an average speed of 25 miles an hour for more than 57 hours (that's almost two and a half days, folks!) on one gallon of gasoline . . . during the Kilometer Marathon held at West Germany's Hockenheim race track.

UNPROCESSED OIL FROM CHINESE TALLOWTREE SEEDS will run a stock diesel engine at the power level produced by conventional fuel, according to the "weed" tree's proponents. A native of China (where its waxy seeds are used to make candles), Sapium sebiferum is naturalized in this country from southern North Carolina to northern Florida and west to southeastern Texas .... A $1.1 MILLION PHOTOVOLTAIC SYSTEM is now heating water and providing electricity at the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport .... THE INNER WORKINGS OF THREE MILE ISLAND'S UNIT 2 REACTOR are little more than rubble, according to engineers who took their first looks into the core — more than three years after the incident — through a miniature TV camera lowered through inch-and-a-half holes .... SOLAR-CELL-POWERED RADIATION MONITORING STATIONS are located near nuclear plants throughout the Southeast to collect measurements in the event of "nonroutine releases" . . . . PAKISTAN HAS LAUNCHED A $5 MILLION PROGRAM designed to bring low-technology solar applications — primarily water distillers, heaters, and cookers — to some 20,000 villages.