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| 8/2/2006 11:07:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article
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The Eagle/Chad Larsen
Michael Hartkop, founder of Bend’s Solar Roast LLC, roasts coffee with this 170-mirror array. Hartkop invented the device, and now sells his coffee beans nationwide. |
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The Eagle/Chad Larsen
Machinist Paul Smith, 71, the only driver in Saturday’s running of the Electrathon, heads into the makeshift straightaway at the Grant County fairgrounds parking lot. Smith reports that the all-electric, battery-powered car took three years and $1,500 to build by hand. |
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Fossil fuels on back burner at SolWest
Solar-powered everything abounds, but we’re not out of the petroleum woods yet
By Chad Larsen
Blue Mountain Eagle
JOHN DAY- Can you take a hot shower with solar power, or bake a loaf of bread outdoors, roast coffee beans with mirrors or fuel your diesel with french-fry grease? How does a hydrogen fuel cell work, anyway, and when will we start filling up at the garden hose?
Can a senior citizen build an electric car with his bare hands?
At last weekend's SolWest Renewable Energy Fair, vendors from across the state converged on Grant County Fairgrounds to answer these and other unusual questions.
There was machinist Paul Smith and his electric home-built go-kart, running 12 volts from two batteries bolted on the back of the tiny slipper-shaped frame. Multiply volts times amperes and you have his reported two horsepower, traversing the traffic cone and hay-bale track and reaching 18 mph at the end of each straightaway. Friends said that was too slow, and he should up the voltage on the 071 car.
The number matches Smith's age, and 12 volts was plenty. He was doing laps for 30 minutes at a time. The charge would last an hour to an hour and a half, he said.
"And I wish that sun was sitting somewhere else. When you're going down the straightaway, you're looking right into it."
Smith, the only racer in Saturday's Electrathon, might also have been the only sun-enemy at SolWest, with solar power and its purveyors dominating the commercial showing, and "sol," being Latin for "sun," after all.
There was Portland's Mr. Sun Solar demonstrating a solar water heater by rigging showers in one of the fairground stalls. Adequate for year-round use by a family of four, the heater costs less than $4,000 and pays for itself in diminished electric bills and environmental impact.
Portland General Electric estimates that each solar water-heating system saves 1,000 pounds of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere each year by reducing power-plant emissions.
There were the "Molly Baker" solar ovens brought by Robert Ray, devices that will cook "anything you can put in a crock-pot" by concentrating sunlight to reach temperatures upward of 220 degrees. The $75 units will cook a loaf of bread in about two hours.
And if you wanted a cup of coffee, there was that as well. Michael Hartkop, founder of Bend's Solar Roast LLC trucked in the apparatus that he invented, a coffee roaster that browns beans with the sunlight from a 170-mirror array.
"I'm a coffee roaster by trade," Hartkop said. "My brother is a solar energy enthusiast, and we wanted to do something that would combine our interests."
Hartkop and family started Solar Roast two years ago, and he now sells to customers nationwide through his website.
In a climate where gas prices have piqued interest in alternative fuels, it may have disappointed some that the Electrathon didn't invite as much participation this year, and save for two booths exhibiting alternative-fuel technology, visitors to SolWest weren't getting an immediate solution to the gas crisis.
Niki Henriksen of Corvallis' Enviofuel showcased kits that allow any diesel engine to run on used vegetable oil, essentially a waste product available anywhere.
"Literally, you just pull up behind any restaurant." Henriksen said. "Pump it into your tank and keep driving."
While vegetable oil is much more viscous than diesel, pre-heating the fuel and using special injectors allow it to burn cleanly and efficiently, Henriksen said. Biodiesel carries the same reduction in harmful emissions, but is a hassle to make.
Possible heir to the petroleum throne, hydrogen power was also a presence, with Oregon Institute of Technology student Evan Pickett and graduate Zack Grant displaying a car powered by a small 1.2 kilowatt hydrogen fuel cell.
"But hydrogen's pretty tough to get," says Pickett. The car wasn't running Saturday.
According to Pickett, the cell utilizes a system called a Proton Exchange Membrane (PEM), which takes on-board hydrogen and splits the atoms into positively charged protons and negatively charged electrons. The protons then diffuse across the membrane to recombine with oxygen intake on the cathode side, creating only water as a byproduct.
The membrane blocks the electrons, which instead travel along an external circuit to generate the cell's energy output.
A common misconception exists that water will fuel hydrogen-powered cars directly, but the hydrogen has to be separated from water before it can be used to fuel a car.
"Some sort of electrical thing has to happen to separate hydrogen and water," Pickett said, "and electrolysis is too inefficient (to occur in a passenger car)."
Will hydrogen fuel cells be replacing fossil fuels any time soon?
"They're available for commercial use right now." Pickett said. "You just have to find a good use for them. PEM membranes are prohibitively expensive."
The 1.2 kilowatt cell cost $3,200, according to Pickett.
The car weighs about 150 pounds.
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