Monday :
- Please see Lighting Efficiency and Slides
- Could it be that our electricity use is decreasing???
- Rather than drying your clothes with heat, why not just blast the water out of them with sound waves? Come to class prepared to tell me why ultrasonic drying are 4 times as efficient as conventional driers.
- See video: Heat Pump Efficiency and slides
- Note: Heat pumps don’t pump hot air from cold to hot, they move thermal energy to a hotter place. Can you explain the difference?
Wednesday:
- See this professional video about setting up an OTEC facility in Hawaii by Makai
- See this 2 minute summary where I discuss OTEC from Wikipedia.
- Please read Jevon’s Paradox
- Please see Cool Roofs and Paradox. Slides: see the very end of efficiency slides
- The ultimate cool roofs material has just been invented. Please see from Feb. 27, Physics Today a surface coating that emits more heat than it absorbs even under strong sunlight. Is that possible?
Friday :
- Please see Wind Power and slides
- If you like, read about a transition from rancher to wind farm technician.
- When I was at Berkeley 2006 – 2007, we looked at Tethered Wind Energy Systems – could you fly a turbine at the end of a long kite string higher so that it received more consistently strong wind…. even up into the Jet Stream? It seems that people are working on this on a smaller scale now. Here’s an interesting short video if you’re interested.