Re: Solar ovens (was Re: Microwave baked potato?)

Omelet wrote:

In article <46D2E72E.94922B4C@xxxxxxxx>,
"Pete C." <aux3.DOH.4@xxxxxxxx> wrote:

Geothermal (ground source) heat pumps are quite efficient. The ground
down 6' or so is a nice stable temperature and is a great thermal mass
to extract heat from or dump heat to.

It's an interesting concept I've only skimmed the surface of.
More study is needed.

It's the same basic idea as the earlier air source heat pumps, moving
heat from indoors to out for cooling and from outdoors to indoors for
heating. The difference is instead of trying to move that heat to/from
outdoor air which wildly varies in temperature, the heat is moved
to/from coils that are buried in the ground where the temperatures are
stable and the thermal mass is so great that the heat you add or remove
has little effect on the soil temp. Just makes for a more efficient
system.

I've got to check out the local cave maps. "Wonder World" cave is only
about 4 or 5 blocks down the street and they have a map of the local
system. Not sure of the depth... but I think they are shallower than
many.

A lot of caves around, many not open to the general public.


But if a large room runs under my property, I'll have to seriously check
it out when I pay the morgage off in 4 more years and I can free up some
income. :-) Worth a looksee for more than one reason.

Drill a shaft down from your living room eh?


Solar is free. ;-) Therein lies the beauty except for cloudy days and
hot nights? Would you use storage batteries? (I may have missed that
part if you mentioned it).

That was the idea, charge a battery bank for the evening hours. If the
absorption chiller is big enough, you can "ice bank" and use excess
capacity to freeze a tank of water during the day while you have the
solar energy, to provide cooling at night. Some big buildings also use
ice banking, just doing the ice generation at night when electric rates
are lower.

Not cave diving. Air space varies from about 6" to 10' and water depth
from about 0" to about 20'.

I'm mildly claustrophobic.
NO underground (or ice) diving for me.
I just know I'd die.

Caving certainly isn't for the claustrophobic, it isn't for the
inflexible either as you sometimes have to do some interesting
contortions to get through an area.


Panic is generally what kills divers. I'd rather not put myself in a
position for that to happen.

"Stop, think, act" as they say.


"Know thyself" and all that.
Know thy limitations.

Yep.




Gods. I've not used my stuff in years. For safety's sake, I'd be best
off doing a couple of pool dives to re-familiarize myself with my
equipment.

Yep, good idea to take a refresher class.

Indeed. :-)
Even if it's just at Canyon Lake.

But, the local dive shop has a pool for classes.
I'm sure I could afford a refresher course, plus I'd need to get my
regulators checked out.

Yep, refresher courses are cheap. My dive shop has classes at a pool
just about every weekend, and their customers are invited to show up
whenever and get some pool time in. Good to just go puddle diving there
once in a while to stay in shape.


Scuba is not for the careless.

Nope. Plenty of ways to kill yourself if you're careless.


So many crafts, so little time.

So many tools I don't have yet, need projects to justify them :)

That's not generally difficult. <G>

Sadly for my budget, it isn't.

--
Peace, Om

Remove _ to validate e-mails.

"My mother never saw the irony in calling me a Son of a bitch" -- Jack Nicholson
.

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