Solar Air Conditioning

Using the Sun's Light to Defeat the Sun's Heat!

Solar Air Conditioning by Vacuum Tube Heat Pipe and Lithium Bromide Absorption Chiller Cooling at Debs Park Audubon Environmental Science Center in Los Angeles





This video starts with a visual montage of the sheer number of air conditioners used on the street we live on in Cairo, Egypt, describing them as energy parasites that actually increase the heat of the surrounding air.

It then shows the vacuum tube heat pipe solar absorption cooling air conditioning system installed by solar engineer Les Hamasaki at the Debs Park Audubon Environmental Center in Los Angeles. Les Hamasaki describes the 10-ton solar chiller and we conclude with a note about how solar chillers not only eliminate the need for air conditioners, but the need for entire power plants. They also produce hot water and can be used for sterilizing and desalinating contaminated water.

As we say in the video, solar air conditioners "USE THE SUN'S LIGHT TO DEFEAT THE SUN'S HEAT!"

Thus, the hotter it gets outside, the cooler it gets inside!

At a recent climate change seminar at the American University in Cairo showing the update to Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth", delegates from the Environmental Ministry said that there are some trial solar air conditioners being experimented with in Egypt, but were unclear as to where they were, or why we don't see them in actual use!

Residential Energy Efficiency 101

Residential Energy Efficiency 101

The following video vignettes first appeared in a training program Frank Di Massa and I developed to instruct electric utility Customer Service Representatives (CSRs) but the information can be used by anyone that wants to learn about home energy efficiency, utility bill reduction and smart shopping for home improvement. The complete PowerPoint presentation contains additional information; for availability please contact Frank at (707)837-0956.

Slide 1: Hot Goes to Cold - Summer
Delta T = Temperature Difference

Slide 2: Winter

Slide 3: CFM In = CFM Out
Exhaust Fans
Fireplace - Natural Convection
Pressurization



Slide 4: Attic Insulation
Depth of Insulation
R-Value (Resistance to Heat Loss) increases with thickness

Slide 5: Insulating Knee Walls

Slide 6: Baffles for Recessed Ceiling Lights



Slide 7: Proper Attic Ventilation

Slide 8: Attic Ventilation Turbines



Slide 9: Weatherstipping and Caulking

Slide 10: Windows & Comfort


Slide 11: Sunlight
Ultraviolet, Visible Spectrum, Infrared

Slide 12: Window Terminology/Performance
U-Value/Heat Loss through window/Low Value is Best

Slide 13: Window Terminology/Solar Heat Gain Coefficient (SHGC)
Low value means lower cooling requirements

Slide 14: Window Terminology/Visible Light Transmittance (VLT)
Higher is better

Slide 15: Window Terminology/Air Leakage
Cubic Feet/Minute/Square Foot
Lower is better

Slide 16: Efficient Window Have These Features



Slide 17: Shading Windows

Slide 18: Plant a Shade Tree

Slide 19: UV Light Damages Fabrics
High performance windows cut damaging UV rays to nearly zero



Slide 20: Refrigeration Loop

Slide 21: Air Conditioning
High SEER, Proper Sizing and Tight Ducts lead to high performance and savings

Slide 22: Air Conditioning - How it Works



Slide 23: Ducting Basics

Slide 24: Programmable Thermostat can save energy and $s

Slide 25: Use a Room Fan and set TStat lower in the summer



Slide 26: Incandescent versus Compact Fluorescent

Slide 27: Incandescent versus CFL

Slide 28: T8 Linear Fluorescent is more efficient than T12

Slide 29: Refrigerator Energy Use

Slide 30: EnergyStar Refrigerator Saves Money


Slide 31: EnergyStar Refrigerator Makes Sense



Slide 32: Clean Your Refrigerator Coils

Slide 33: Purchase Front Loading Horizontal Axis EnergyStar Model
Saves Water
Leads to less drying time



Slide 34: Laundry - Purchase EnergyStar


Slide 35: EnergyStar Dishwasher - Use Energy Saver Setting

Slide 36: CRT Monitors are Out/LCD are in
Turn it off when its not in use - I do



Slide 37: Solar Pool Heating
Saves Natural Gas and can extend swimming season

Keeping Up with the Greens: Frank's House Episode I: Of Fathers and Suns

Forget keeping up with the Joneses. Try keeping up with the Greens!

This is our entry for the Tree Hugger TV EPIC (Ethical Progressive Intelligent Consumer) video contest. The idea is to show how you walk the walk as well as talk the talk. Frank and I decided to video tape the real progress he has made with his family home in Windsor California, and play him off against a fictional (but all too real) "neighbor" (played by Cairo based T.H. Culhane) who is obsessed by "keeping up with the Joneses" but doesn't quite understand what competing to be eco-friendly is really all about.

With this video Frank and I establish the two main characters who will eventually appear in a full blown series we are in development on called "Keeping up with the Greens: Frank's House" - Frank DiMassa (who will be renamed "Frank Green") a utility consultant and homeowner with a wife and two kids who lives in a "Truman Show" kind of model American surburban enclave that is a manicured, sterile and ecologically tragic landscape that he hates, and Tom Culhane (who will be renamed "Tom Brown"), a man perfectly adapted to the artificial paradise who believes that global warming is part of a "State of Fear" conspiracy concocted by Enviro-wackos and that bigger is always better.

The names Frank Green and Tom Brown go along with our previous instructional video on "The electron pool" where we showed people the difference between "green electrons" and "brown electrons". Frank consumes (and produces!) only "Green Electrons" while Tom consumes massive amounts of purely 'Brown Electrons".

The tension between these two figures and the relationship with their wives and children ultimately creates an optimistic look at how even the most stubborn of American consumers can find ways to compete their way toward cooperation and sustainability.

Computer control of electric appliances

This is another video we did that was embedded in a Powerpoint presentation for utilities back at the turn of the century so they could learn how to use new products for controlling electric appliances from remote computers via the internet. It makes you wonder why there are so many huge office buildings that STILL leave the lights and fans on ALL NIGHT! Another case of the "low adoption of efficient energy technologies" paradox that Avraham Shama and economists Adam Jaffe and Robert Stavins (1994) write about (see "The energy paradox and the diffusion of conservation technolog" for more on this!

Curtailment Control

Check out the ORIGINAL haunting German film "23" (the American remake with Jim Carrey is here, but it seems to be your run of the mill conspiracy theory movie, with nothing about computer hacker power plant curtailment)and then watch our little video (narrated by T.H. Culhane, produced by Frank DiMassa) which shows how today we actually can control big power plants and the flow of electrons to homes and businesses from a laptop computer.


We at Solar C.I.T.I.E.S. are somewhat ambivalent about this capability -- on the one hand we think it is very good that lights and heating and air conditioning in a distant location can be turned off from a laptop computer. Imagine you were responsible for not just a home, but an entire business or factory, and you left for a distant trip without turning off the boiler or the AC. It could not only be extremely or wasteful, but catastrophic. On the other hand it calls to mind films such as "Total Recall", (where the dictatorial CEO of the Martian mining colony decides to shut off the air supply to all his citizens so they won't rebel), to say nothing of the thriller "23". Also, our work trying to foster peace and understanding between Israelis and Palestinians is often hampered by the issue of who controls the electricity and water; the exploitation of control over these basic amenities is used as a tool of both power and terror.

We can offer few solutions other than to hope that citizens in democracies not only become aware of how technologies of control can be used, but empower themselves with oversight capabilities so that the desire for control can not get... out of control!

Note:
The music to this video is our song "Keep it real" which we composed after a visit to the Solfest '99 at Real Goods Solar Living Center in Hopland. There we had the chance to meet and interview Ed Begley Jr. and get inspired by all the solar powered music going on at the festival. We wrote lyrics to our song such as -- "Real is the sunshine, and real is the rain; real are the windstreams that blow on the plains; II want the real goods, real deal..." and intended to create one of our "Melodic-Mnemonics" about how renewable energy is the only real energy, the rest is a dangerous and unsustainable detour that will appear as a mere blip in human history; we decided to repurpose the music for a bunch of our utility videos, so you'll hear it in a bunch of our work.

Summer Savings

Each summer when Frank DiMassa and I would set out to do another video there would be new exciting rebates from Roseville to tell the public about! We could take the same structure and plug in the new information. This starts out like the last video, but shows a long-haired Frank installing new energy saving ideas into his home. What was great was that as we made the videos Frank would literally transform his house into a more energy efficient place to live and reduce his carbon footprint. Now "Frank's House" (the title of our upcoming documentary) is supplied by photovoltaic power and uses all the latest energystar appliances. He hardly contributes to Global Warming at all!

Roseville Rebates

The turn of the century was a good time for Northern California Energy Consumers thanks to the visionaries at Roseville Electric. Here you had a utility company that really wanted you to USE LESS ELECTRICITY! They knew that since demand was growing in California it would be a win-win for us all engage in what they called "Peak Load Shaving" -- using conservation and renewable energy to offset the peak loads that cause blackouts and brownouts and cost the state millions in lost revenue. Let us hope that during these dire times other utilities catch the green fever that Roseville was so good at promoting!