Newspapers / Shelby Daily Star (Shelby, … / Nov. 11, 1936, edition 1 / Page 8
Part of Shelby Daily Star (Shelby, N.C.) / About this page
This page has errors
The date, title, or page description is wrong
This page has harmful content
This page contains sensitive or offensive material
QUEER THINGS THAT MAY HAPPEN WHEN WE PUT THE SUN TO WORK Solar Stoves and House-Heaters Already in Use Point to Amazing Potentialities of New Engine of / Dr. Charles G. Abbot ^ / For Which Nature Supplies Power ✓ / / / ' y s''//?v\., ,'J0/ /. ////! ;\ ' ' / /' / / chlorinated . . o / /.V/ / DIPHENYL / / <y/ /O/ / COMPOUND / / ^ / //C°/ /VACUUM /_^-*-“-7 ^z. - -V" / / In the Home Elec tric Ranges, Toast ers, Curling Irons, Water Heaters, Radiators and Even Towel Driers Will Be “Fed” with Heat Converted from Sun Rays. HIGHLY \ / POLISH ED i SHEET \ / AMETAL V" JyreflectorsV 175 POUNDS ) STEAM PRESSURE H.P. STEAM ENGINE: FIRE TUBE BOILER DYNAMO FOR ] .CONVERTING \ SOLAR HEAT \ INTO ELECTRICAL* POWER,AND FOR I 1 COOKING,REFRIGERATION, ETC. LIGHT "Bottled Sunlight” Be fleeted from a Set of Ke fracting Prism* Sur rounding a Small Elec tric Light Bulb Deriving Its Current at Night rrom a Storage Battery Recharged by the Sun. ]Lf Y new solar engine, which gets all its power from the sun, may help the world to make the coming transition from the use of coal and oil, which some day will be rare luxuries. When the supplies of coal and oil have been exhausted, water-power will be the only other widely used source of energy so far as is known today. But if the inexhaustible energy of the sun’s rays Is called upon, the studies I have made may lead to an economic solution. My present sun-power machine may seem crude a century hence, but it may help the world to make the transition, without much sacri fice. In the meantime there are many applications to which sunpower may be put. By Lou Wedemar V RAYS of the Sun have been har nessed in one way or another by man ever since it was discovered, hundreds of thousands of years ago, that radiations from a shiny surface could be made to start a lire. But only now, after centuries of worship of the Sun, and a comparatively few years of scientific investigation of so lar emanations, has mankind been able to develop ways to draw upon the biggest powerhouse in Creation at will for inexpensive energy, as convenient ly as it dams rivers or burns coal for power. And having, at last, been able to find methods of tapping the supreme pow erhouse, scientists and engineers now loot: forward to the use of sunpovu-r in generating electricity for thousands of uses not even guessed today. Among the concrete instances of the use of sunpovver which suggest future possibilities are Florida's sunpower machines which heat water to provide warmth in apartment houses after sun down, and California’s sunpower ma chines, used for cooking' hot-dogs and toasting rolls at roadside stands. In both cases there is not a cent expend ed for fuel. Some other applications % Below, the Solar Heater But to Work in a California Roadside “Rest," Toast ing Hamburgers and Hot Dogs. Right, This Small Solar Motor of Four Photo electric Cells Creates Suflleicnt Energy to Operate a Motor Rated at Four Ten Millionths of One Horse-Power. HEAT Ur. C. C. Abbot, at Right, Photographed with His Solar Heater, Which Harnesses the Sun’s Ravs and Makes Them Operate the One-Half Horse-Power Steam Engine Shown Above the Top Reflector. of suupower arc graphically illustrated in this page. Star of the infant sunpower indus try is a learned scientist. Dr. Charles G. Abbot of the Smithsonian Institu tion. For many years he has studied the sun and the action of its rays, until he knows perhaps more about l hem tlAn any other living man. Dr. Abbot calculates that the amount of sunlight falling in one day, on an area of one square yard, would provide one full horsepower of energy if it could be utilized. Sunpower could be made to supply electricity, water and air-conditioning to make healthful desert land a good place to live. An amazing: new machine, which Dr. Abbot calls a “solar engine,” is actual ly in experimental use today. With it Dr. Abbot solved the problem of trans muting sunlight into electrical energy which can be stored, the biggest stum bling-block of earlier experimenters. The solar engine consists of large, shiny aluminum mirrors, which con centrate the sunlight on a pyrex glass tube, much as a magnifying glass does in a high school physics test. And in the same way as the magnifying glass will make the sunlight set fire to paper or cloth, the aluminum mirrors pro vide intense heat in the pyrex tubes. These tubes are full of a black liquid, which has a capacity for re taining heat. This liquid runs into a boiler, heating water in the boiler un til it turn^ to steam. The steam runs a steam engine, which in turn runs a dynamo. And the dynamo provides electricity for power. The quality of power provided by the solar engine is just the same as if coal were used to heat the boiler—and the operating cost of the sunpower machine is figured by Dr. Abbot to be about the same as it would be for steampower houses using fuel costing $3 a ton. There is no immediate danger, how ever, that coal miners will be put out *1 On the Farm the Sun’s Energy Can Be Put to Work Operating Motors for Milking, Threshing Mowing, Pumping and Hoisting, in Addition to Providing Illumination at Night Copyright, 1936. King Features Syndicate, Inc. A 260-Ton Gearless Passenger Locomotive on M. and St. P. Railroad, Taking Its Power from an Overhead Trol ley Wire. , A Working Diagram of Dr. Abbot’s Solar Heater, Recently Demonstrated Before a Group of Distinguished Sci entists and Engineers at Washington, D. C. The .Abbot Solar Engine Trans forms Heat from the Rays of the Sun into Electric Energy. of work by the solar engine. In fact, there is no ground for wild prophecy that solar-controlled dynamos will make either water and steam generat ing plants obsolete in the near future. In working on sunpower, Dr. Abbot is looking far into the future rather than to present needs. He believes that some day the world's coal reserves will be exhausted, and oil, which also is used for heat and power, will be un available. When that day comes—pos sibly hundreds of years from now mankind must turn to the*sun, the winds and the tides for assistance. And his experiments seem to jus tify the assertion that some day the sun will heat and light the world, day and rfight, summer and winter. « a»iwwwwiwBif« Student# at the California Institute of Technology' Inspecting a New Type of Sun Furnace Designed by One of Their Number.
Shelby Daily Star (Shelby, N.C.)
Standardized title groups preceding, succeeding, and alternate titles together.
Nov. 11, 1936, edition 1
8
Click "Submit" to request a review of this page. NCDHC staff will check .
0 / 75