C. Letellier

can you take the outer bottom layer out and heat from the bottom over fire to make an outdoor oven.  Guessing at least that there is 2 layers in the bottom too?

Is the answer to find smaller sources instead of breaking bigger output?

So what should the ideal ag system look like??

This is one I have been mildly thinking on for years.  We are missing a bunch of synergies and doing semi stupid things looking at this process.  So lets build a list of the dream things the system should do and then ask the question how many of these can we take advantage of in various situations.

A.  First off is heat recovery.  We basically have 5 levels of potential heat to look at here.  They will have some overlap between them.  And ideally we would like to apply multiple layers and reuse that heat multiple times as it degrades.

1.  Hot enough to actually char materials.  Primary use is obvious but preheating, drying might also be in this list.
2.  above boiling but not hot enough to char.  drying but might also be good for maple syrup, sorguhm etc.
3.  Low building heating right to just short of boiling.  Building heating, drying, sterilization(both seed and biological) of compost, manure.
4.  Greenhouse heating
5.  livestock heating

this ends with the thought of how might you store that heat and how might you move it thru the system?

B.  I would argue we are maybe making the wrong char in many cases.  Most ag people are not set up to handle large quantities of wood or to break up large quantities of char after the fact so is wood maybe not the best answer for material to char?  What are farmers set up to handle.  Hay, straw, cornstalks, slash piles from wood clean up.  And if we start with smaller materials to char breaking them up on the other end is no big deal.  So we solve a problem.  Now we add the problem that our char chamber density is lower.  Another mistake here is not building to use power equipment to to the jobs the whole way thru the process.  When it comes time to unload the retort that needs to be a low labor operation probably using the very same loaders that are moving bale, pushing manure, loading the feed truck etc.

C.  Another problem would be air pollution from the same system.  Can we maybe use are incoming fuel or char source as a low grade filter to reduce pollution while drying it and preheating it?  What about ability to recover moisture from this?

D.  Other potential synergistic gains?  Other ways to improve the process?  How to make it cost effective?  How to make it labor effective?  And apply all of these at various scale from home thru large scale ag?

Wash it with a residue free automotive cleaner.  Personally I prefer premium ether.  Then wash that out with Dawn and finally wash with normal detergent.

Large card board box with 1 or 2 infrared 400 watt heater bulbs shining from above. Usually in the entry way sitting on insulation to protect it from the cold concrete floor.  Usually has a heated baby pig mat on one half of the box floor.  Towel dry then they live in the box, bottle fed, for 2 or 3 days before moving them out with the rest of the bums.

Anne Miller wrote:A lot of the worlds knowledge has been save in books.

How many of these books have been saved to the internet?

I would have guessed more than half.  But a quick google show 10% for the library of congress is scanned as of today and I assume it is ahead of most others.  Big libraries have been making a major push to get the stuff scanned at least.  Most are not text searchable yet but only scanned pictures.

Now I agree with Jay's comment about about things disappearing and being changed etc.  I am beginning to think I need storage for everything I view so I can actually go back to what I read.  And that would mean I need my own AI cataloging things too.

I would guess there is more knowledge there than shows though.  But much of it is not readily available for various reason.  

We can all probably list thing from farm or homestead stuff that many people do not know.  For example say I talked about working with a bar digging post holes and laying it down on the ground and suddenly 10 minutes later it is too hot to pick up.  Guessing maybe 10% of the audience here is thinking something along the lines of "hey stupid, stab it in the ground pointed at the sun or pointed where the sun will be"  But betting for most that is a new process.  It works because you only leave a few square inches to absorb the sun's heat while maximizing it radiative surface area, so basically it air cools to air temperature.  Where is that actually going to show in a search function?  AI probably improves the chances of finding that one but likely still not easy yet for some it is common knowledge.

Pay walls for access to much of the internet is another problem

Information overload with potentially bad information is another part of the problem.

Another problem is algorithms not showing needed information.  For example 10 or 15 years ago I watched a solar water heater video by  Ben Gravely that made a whole lot of sense.  Found it a few times while dreaming back then and then suddenly couldn't find it for many years.  Assumed it had been removed.  Then about a year ago I stumbled into it again.  Information wise it was actually better than what I remembered.  But for that whole time in between poorer but newer or more popular information had kept it hidden.

Mart Hale wrote:

C. Letellier wrote:

Mart Hale wrote:Another factor I have seen is to have a set of panels set for morning sun, and another for evening sun.        This helps to have the distribution of power very steady for the day.

Engineer 775   on youtube does this, and I see  a good deal of wisdom in doing this.

One of the new patterns is to use vertical bifacial oriented north-south.  Add reflectors on both side at the base so they run on reflected light too.  They can actually have 2x or 3x the light on the panel much of the time.  

There was lots of hype about that.      I do like the testing done on this video...

Interesting.  Will need to keep watching the data.

My one other problem with bifacials otherwise is I don't see how to convert them to PVT operation without major losses.

Mart Hale wrote:Another factor I have seen is to have a set of panels set for morning sun, and another for evening sun.        This helps to have the distribution of power very steady for the day.

Engineer 775   on youtube does this, and I see  a good deal of wisdom in doing this.

One of the new patterns is to use vertical bifacial oriented north-south.  Add reflectors on both side at the base so they run on reflected light too.  They can actually have 2x or 3x the light on the panel much of the time.  

Typical rule of thumb for solar is lattitude + 10 degrees but  it really depends on your weather, power needs by season and a host of other factors.  

Have half the sun in winter but twice the power need then you better optimize for that part of your solar.  

Need to run big air conditioners in summer months then you might want to optimize for that.  Since your day is potentially way longer in summer you may to spit you panel directions 3 ways with some pointing south east, some south and some south west for example so you always have good power to run those air conditioners.

Your need really depends on your use.

r ransom wrote:....
monocrystalline
For California living, where many of the early  studies are done, poly was considered most effective as it gathered good energy during direcf sunlight hours.  So this is what they market to us as most efficient to us, even though they don't work well in our climate

Did you say the variety you meant?  Classic arguments for low light and indirect usually list amorphic instead of poly crystalline.  Under cloud cover they produce some power where the power is mostly blocked by the other 2 because they utilize different frequencies.