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Submission Summary: 0 pending, 26 declined, 3 accepted (29 total, 10.34% accepted)

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Submission + - Rebranding "The Beaver" (leaderpost.com) 1

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Canada's second oldest magazine — the venerable, Winnipeg-based history publication The Beaver has been forced to change its name after 90 years because the title's inadvertently sexual connotation is getting caught in spam filters."
Power

Submission + - New Slash Based Energy Forum (r2dot.org)

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Having lurked around SlashDot since the late '90's and watching the lack of scalability of some of the newer blogging software, I thought I would put together an energy based forum on some "Old School" Slash that brings together my main interests: Open Source IT and renewable energy system design. The intent is to provide a free hosting system for renewable and traditional energy bloggers that lowers the time commitment and has the features like group moderation and threaded comments that make comments and discussion a little more scalable than blogging. r2dot.org is up and running and after messing with Slash for a week, I have a love/hate relationship with CmdrTaco. :)"
Power

Submission + - SHPEGS: DIY Solar/Geothermal Electricity

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "SHPEGS is an open design not-for-profit project to design and prototype a base load renewable electrical generation system suitable for moderate climates and built from common materials. The design centers around creating a local geothermal source with an efficient solar thermal water heater system and can be scaled from the single residence to the mega-project. The project was recently featured in an in-depth The Future of Things article. The heliostat system used in Europe's First Solar Thermal Plant could be used in a scaled down SHPEGS system with Practical Solar's small scale heliostats."
Power

Submission + - Europe's First Solar Thermal Power Online

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "According to BBC News, Solucar, a division of Abengoa has brought Europe's first commercial solar thermal power station online. It is generating 11MW using a heliostat flat mirror and central tower solar steam system. A video of the system is available from BBC.

The system design would integrate very well with the SHPEGS concepts and combining this type of CSP plant with seasonal thermal storage and a massive air-coupled solar heat pump has a very strong potential for high summer insolation/cold winter climates like Canada and the Northern US and Europe."
Power

Submission + - The Future of Things: SHPEGS

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "The Future of Things has an article/interview on the Open Source SHPEGS project. The SHPEGS project is a not-for-profit renewable system design project with the focus of creating a clean, baseload, renewable power system for moderate climates based on solar, geothermal and heat upgrader/pump steampunk technology. The SHPEGS design takes advantage of moderate climates by capturing the heat from the high summer solar insolation and warm summer air of more northern locations and storing it in massive thermal storage. During the winter cycle power is generated as with a traditional geothermal system and a massive quantity of ice is stored underground for summer efficiency. The initial SHPEGS system was featured on slashdot back in January and has seen many refinements in design, interest from commercial ventures and improvements in presentation materials as the project has moved along. Vinod Khosla is a major proponent of Solar Thermal power generation, and he speaks on it in these Australian Four Corners videos."
Power

Submission + - What's a SHPEGS?

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "In the few months since this Open Design Renewable Energy Project was initiated, the concept has seen vast technical input from many sources and the design and calculations have gone through several revisions. The project has recently had several serious inquiries from VC firms and commercial entities and is rapidly moving into the demonstration project phase. The project will remain open and not-for-profit and attempt to assist commercial entities and communities in adapting the system.

The design focus is to build a feasible renewable base load power station from common materials for moderate climates like Western Canada where there is high solar isolation during the summer, but very cold temperatures and little daylight in winter. A binary geothermal system is integrated with massive local underground thermal storage and a solar thermal powered air-coupled absorption heat pump water heater that has the potential to more than double the thermal output of the solar collectors. Power is generated while heating the thermal storage in the summer and this local thermal storage is used in a traditional binary geothermal system in the winter. The sub-0C winter temperatures and relatively close thermal storage allow for an efficient geothermal system in the winter and the winter air will cool the thermal storage well below freezing for efficient summer operation.

A SHPEGS is a Solar Heat Pump Electrical Generation System."
Power

Submission + - Open Letter to Sir Richard Branson

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Dear Sir Richard Branson,

Upon reading the information on the recently announced Virgin Earth Challenge I feel that although I admire the noble effort, I have difficulty with the terms and conditions of the challenge. I believe that if you and the Virgin group of companies were serious regarding improving our planet that you have the resources to make an immediate change in the world energy situation and to lower the risk of climate change.

I believe that we have an initial design for an implementable system that uses indirect solar collection to generate electricity and store thermal energy in an economical, environmentally friendly, scalable, reliable, efficient and location independent manner using common construction materials. This system design is not under limited Intellectual Property protection and a pilot project and further commercial ventures may be initiated under the Virgin brand.

I am challenging you to invest some resources, form an engineering team and take the energytower.org idea and to build some massive bright red convection tower renewable energy systems with the Virgin logo painted on the side.

Sincerely,
Robert J. Rohatensky
Regina, SK Canada
www.energytower.org"
Power

Submission + - Open Letter to Sir Richard Branson

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Dear Sir Richard Branson,

Upon reading the information on the recently announced Virgin Earth Challenge I feel that although I admire the noble effort, I have difficulty with the terms and conditions of the challenge. I believe that if you and the Virgin group of companies were serious regarding improving our planet that you have the resources to make an immediate change in the world energy situation and to lower the risk of climate change.

I believe that we have an initial design for an implementable system that uses indirect solar collection to generate electricity and store thermal energy in an economical, environmentally friendly, scalable, reliable, efficient and location independent manner using common construction materials. This system design is not under limited Intellectual Property protection and a pilot project and further commercial ventures may be initiated under the Virgin brand.

I am challenging you to invest some resources, form an engineering team and take the energytower.org idea and to build some massive bright red convection tower renewable energy systems with the Virgin logo painted on the side.

Sincerely,
Robert J. Rohatensky
Regina, SK Canada
www.energytower.org"
Power

Submission + - Renewable Energy for the Data Center?

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "The ISP/Carrier/Colo company I work for has just announced a new "green" program. Although this is a step forward, they don't have a comprehensive environmental sustainability plan.

I have been leading an open renewable energy project and I think we have 2 novel ideas for scalable and reliable renewable electrical power, the Solar Ammonia Absorption Convection Tower and the Compressed Air Wind Electrical Generation System.

What are your ideas for renewable power generation and conservation for the data center and other areas of industry?
New Ideas Only. Please don't mention Solar PV"
Power

Submission + - Update: Energy Tower Power Calculations

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Since this story was originally posted, the efficiency and power output calculations of this Open Design Renewable Energy Project have been completed for implementations of a mid-sized installation for various climates.

Although the project is not at the pilot stage yet, the physics and math demonstrate that the system can meet the design criteria of a clean, renewable, feasible, location independant, reliable electrical generation system that can be built from common materials."
Power

Submission + - Update: Energy Tower Power Calculations

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Since this story was originally posted, the efficiency and power output calculations of this Open Design Renewable Energy Project have been completed for implementations of a mid-sized installation for various climates.

Although the project is not at the pilot stage yet, the physics and math demonstrate that the system can meet the design criteria of a clean, renewable, feasible, location independant, reliable electrical generation system that can be built from common materials.

(corrected link from previous submission)"
Power

Submission + - Update: Energy Tower Power Calculations

Submitted by
rohar
rohar writes: "Since this story was originally posted, the efficiency and power output calculations of this Open Design Renewable Energy Project have been completed for implementations of a mid-sized installation for various climates.

Although the project is not at the pilot stage yet, the physics and math demonstrate that the system can meet the design criteria of a clean, renewable, feasible, location independant, reliable electrical generation system that can be built from common materials."

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