Hello, there is a project going on at the F.I.R.E. (Foundation for Interplanetary Research and Exploration) organization, to build a massive solar reflector array on the desert floor using a sort of fresnel lens style of mirror placement, with the ability to track the sun. This will allow a glass chamber to be used to produce custom atmospheres over the smelting area, as the light will converge inside, so the penetration points of the chamber are scattered lowering the heat the beams produce at any one point in the chamber wall well below the temperature range of the glass, while still allowing the focal point inside to be able to be flashed up to 30,000ºF as well as plummeted back to the chambers ambient temperature as fast as the substance being heated will allow.
Their goal is to produce products like solar cells (silicone doped with boron, and phosphorus) from raw materials, like crushed quartz crystal sand, with out the use of any fossil fuels in the heating process. Currently the biggest drawback in going solar.
creating solar cells requires nearly 12 times the amount of energy to refine and process these materials, than the cells will produce over their entire lifespan. So to burn oil or coal to make them makes little to no sense, unless you need electricity someplace that burning oil or coal can not be done, (say on a space exploratory vehicle)
however if you replace the oil or coal process for producing heat for smelting with concentrated photonic energy from the sun, then going over to solar cells would indeed be a very successful endeavor, yielding all the electrical needs of our planet and saving our resources for other needs.
You can follow their progress over at:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/FIRE-Foundation-for-Interplanetary-Research-and-Exploration/165163490232537
a video of some physical work being done on the project's POC model.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxb5IB0neTw
They will be both running a crowd funding project and offering free DIY plans from their work, so others can replicate it on their own scale, for any use they choose.
from electronics, and mechanical design, to the chemistry for making all the things they produce,
Also I have it on good authority that there is a plan to assist completion of a space elevator, complete with failsafe devices that utilize some materials we currently do not have a way to make on earth, that this furnace will allow finally.
Quote from: The Architect on September 25, 2012, 06:48:46 PMTheir goal is to produce products like solar cells (silicone doped with boron, and phosphorus) from raw materials, like crushed quartz crystal sand, with out the use of any fossil fuels in the heating process.
That would be interesting, if anyone could produce it by raw materials.
hmm that is weird, it says that I got a reply from GreeneWashington but I do not see their comment at all. anyone know what that is about?