How these mirror toys can generate cheap solar energy

Many of us wanted to turn a satellite TV dish into a concave mirror. Now we see how a mirror dish focuses the solar radiation, and it is obvious that this point will have a high temperature, which can set fire to wood, or blow something up, or melt metal, or for cooking. Usually a satellite dish is turned into a mirror through sticking small pieces of mirrors, or sticking reflective films, or some other way.

Our concave mirrors appear to be very cheap, and therefore it seems to us that they are capable of producing cheap thermal energy and electricity. That is why we ask the question, can we install thousands or millions of our cheap mirror dishes, which will give us a lot of cheap thermal energy and electricity so that such solar power plants are better than thermal and nuclear power plants and solar panels, and the answer to this question will surprise you.

Now I am showing the 1st option, which suggests that a mirror dish would focus solar radiation onto a similar Stirling engine. These are examples of the 1st option from various bloggers, when a Stirling engine converts the thermal energy into rotation of an electric generator.

The 2nd option suggests placing a small solar panel here, similar to how this mirror dish focuses solar radiation onto this photovoltaic panel which is water cooled.

The 3rd option is used by this Indian solar power plant, where the solar radiation from the mirror dishes is focused on these cast iron receivers and heats them to a temperature of about 400 ⁰C. The thermal energy turns water into steam which moves through these pipes to this turbine with an electric generator.

Unfortunately, those three options are not suitable for us because our goal is victory over thermal and nuclear power plants, and therefore the cost of our solar electricity should be about 5 cents / kWh. In addition, I remind you that we want our mirror dishes to be better than solar panels.

That is why we must pay attention to the fourth option, which is used by solar power plants of this type. We know that solar radiation heats these pipes, which are filled with thermal oil with a temperature of more than 300 ⁰C. This hot oil moves through these pipes to the center of the solar power plant, where a proportion of its thermal energy produces steam for the turbine, and the rest of the oil energy heats thousands of tons of the substance in these thermal storages to a temperature higher than 300 ⁰C. Then, in the evening or at night, this hot substance produces steam for the turbine, and this is one of the advantages over solar panels, which produce electricity only when it is sunny.

In addition, one of my old videos described how that hot substance can produce electricity for several non-sunny days in a row, if that substance is concrete, gravel, sand or other cheap materials. The next advantage over solar panels is the ability to generate electricity during a non-sunny winter as good as during a sunny summer, if the heat storage is a large mass of soil or cheap waste, as described in this old video.

In addition, my previous video described how similar solar power plants can provide a lot of cheap thermal energy for industrial processes for factories, and my future videos will describe the possibilities of supplying the cheap thermal energy for district heating and greenhouses.

The use of thermal oil is not experimental, but a well-proven technology, which has been in use for more than 20 years, and investors have already built more than 100 such power plants with a total cost of about 40,000,000,000 USD.

Unfortunately, these mirror systems generate expensive thermal energy, about 2 cents / kWh, and therefore their electricity is expensive. That is why thermal energy from our mirror dishes should be 4 times cheaper, about 0.5 cent / kWh.

So, our cheap dish should have a similar receiver, which will heat thermal oil to a temperature higher than 300 ⁰C. These are more decent options for receivers for heating liquids.

Now we see that a dish with a receiver should rotate from morning to evening according to the movement of the sun across the sky. This rotation is done by a device called a "Dual-axis tracker", and this device is widely used as a location for solar panels.

Of course, our solar power plant will consist of a large number of mirror dishes,
which heat hundreds of thousands of tons of cheap substance to approximately 300 ⁰C during solar hours. The thermal energy will generate steam for a turbine both day and night.

[peekors]

Дуже радий вашому поверненю.Сподіваюся ви будете й надалі робити цікавий контент.Успіхів

[David_Mash]

The issue is finding a stirling engine that can produce enough energy for home use

[SolarCookingGermany]

I use mirrors myself, but for producing electric energy there are too many mechanical parts that need maintenance, you need a tracker, a steam engine, a generator and don't underestimate the noise it produces.

[Suavache]

Световая энергия — это бесконечный источник энергии, исходящий от природы, который можно эксплуатировать и использовать для самых разных целей, например, для производства электроэнергии и горячей воды. Это здорово и стимулирует развитие. Спасибо.

[MarkoPetejan]

just maybe the way to go would be to use heat energy directly (without conversion loss) and only use photovoltaics for electricity for what remains.
We can use sun heat energy to heat oil to high temperatures and in turn heat the water to 60 C. Then we use both. This would allow:
- radiators in the winter (60 C water)
- hot water boiler (60 C water)
- dishwasher and washing machine (using 60C water, heating elements removed)
- refrigeration (absorption fridge with flame removed and using heated oil instead)
- cooking (in a way diesel cook stove works, but using heated oil, also oven in the same way)
- possibly even some kind of AC with absorption cooling in summer

Finally we could use (or not) some thermal battery solution (soil, sand or pool of water) to store excess heat during summer for winter. There is a formula for how deep in the soil your tube needs to be to shift heat for say 6 months. Not sure how this would go, maybe to help preheat (water)? Or heat air? Since this is not cheap it would be nice if it's not needed. But if you want a winter garden... then I'd say it is a must. This "battery" also goes both ways, since seasons are shifted it's used to heat in winter and to cool in summer.

Lastly, we need a fairly small photovoltaics+battery (vanlife like) solution to:
- keep LED lights on
- about 10W per notebook/tablet/phone (perhaps better to forget big gaming rigs or laptops and big screen TV)
- other low power devices, security cameras, alarms, home automation
- occasional use of power tools, vacuum cleaner, kitchen gadgets

This would need occasional generator use (bad weather in winter) and frankly if offgrid is not a must, it's probably cheaper to pay some small amount for the grid since all big energy consumers are handled separately. Even only the first 3 from the list would be great.

[dylan_uo]

Could you use this to boil water in a container then direct the steam via pressure to spin a wheel/carborator to generate electricity to be stored in a battery?

[amiymateo]

You are the I love your videos, this is science.

[leonvolq]

Is the cost and type of thermal oil already included here?

[lasertagdreamer]

Is a small Stirling engine + an electric generator really cheaper and more efficient than a solar panel of the same area as this parabolic mirror?

[Humbulla]

you can coat the dish in tollens reagent and then spray a glucose solution on it, this deposits a shiny silver layer with high reflectivity also it´s easy to apply

[stevenfaber]

Has anyone researched using the oil as a direct heat storage method instead of a thermal movement device? I'm wondering if it's not a bad idea to decentralize the generation on the south side, hills/turbine to the north, and a city in the middle. Not In My Back Yard crew will certainly cause a fuss, but less so when they have no gas bill. Expanding it further could funnel a network as large as the US itself! Great videos stay safe and can't wait for the no need to move one!

[pperrinuk]

Regarding the tracking stuff, needing logic and energy to track and move significant masses --- if static mirrors can be constructed cheaply, then mght a network of pipes with valves to route the oil through the current 'hot route' be a useful appproach?

Instead of physically moving mirrors and/or pipes, just have static mirrors and pipes - different ones for different angles and times of year -- and then route the oil through as desired... The inefficiency of 'small window of use' offset against 'efficiency of no physical movement'.

Solar panel maybe are weaker, but they easily can be spreaded. It can be installed on roof, on balcony etc. try to put hot oil tank on your balcony.

[MaacAbra]

I think you should rethink all of that. Why the solar panels are still so popular? Because of simplicity probably. And if I had to build much more complicated system involving piping, special oil agent, big heat storage with best insulation, then deal with the possible leaks and maintenance of the turbine and pressure line than even if it could be two times more efficient than solar panels I would still choose the solar panels for their ease of use and convenience… that is what people would choose.

Don’t get me wrong - I think similar and I support you but want to say that we should search for both simplest and most effective solutions to reach a breakthrough and make a change.

I’m also a big fan of the use of satellite dishes and was thinking about them a lot but unfortunately the only sensible solutions now are heat-cooking or generating direct electricity by some specialized solar receiver of industrial grade (like the one watercooled you have shown) - so this second option is beyond reach yet.

[hillarious]

Спасибо Сергей, надеюсь с вами все в порядке.

[brianharris]

Just put a bunch of big Tesla coils and Van De Graff generators on the magnetic poles of the planet. Free energy and scorch a new ozone layer at the same time. Don't worry, I only had 5 cars waiting to fly by my house while I grabbed the mail today. 1 woman flipped me off. And only 1 mean looking woman photographing me at the grocery store. Every single time I go outside to get my mail at least 1 car has to drive down my residential street and be right in front of my house when I open the box. I can hear them floor it a block away sometimes and once about 3 am this guy was really gunning it down the road, and yes, he was directly in front of my house when I opened the mailbox. He was driving a Spokane Washington patrol cruiser doing 80-90 mph a block from a school zone. Soon as he made his goal he slowed way down. 2 nights ago I just ordered a roll of 1600 of those little mirrors from temu with no idea what to use them for. I do now because I was also getting ready to take down my old Dish TV dish. I wonder how that huge$1 cubic Zirconia is going to fit into the picture? bet I use it to focus the concentrated sunlight through and the reason why will manifest itself to me soon enough. Have a fun day everyone, wear thick leather gloves and a welding mask or your face might get melted!

[MAZ]

loss of efficiency in coverting heat to electricity, turbines?
cost of such turbines etc.?

[xalex]

Solar panels are so cheap now that this doesnt make sense for electrical collection. It's still nice for having a free heat source. Also for big operations there is one currently in Spain, it's not very efficient and needs a lot of maintenance.

[sarahhavillamelooliveira]

Could something like sunflower oil work? It's autoignition is 678 and smoke point is 412.

[CUBETechie]

Can it be used as a direct heatsource?