Today we visited an interesting place in a kind of industrial park. Markus is learning a lot about renewable energy, especially these panals in the picture. They are called evacuated tube collectors that use sun's energy to heat water that passes through the top of the tubes. From there the possibilities are endless! With these collectors and a few other bits of machinery, it is possible to make hot water to use for showers, to heat a house, to cool a house, or even make ice. The place we visited also had a natural gas turbine that generates power and uses the heat from the exhaust to keep the office building warm (combined heat and power generation). For the next year tri-generation is planed using the process heat for cooling. It is all complicated for me to understand...(How in the world do you make ice from hot water??) but I am slowly beginning to understand. I also understand sometimes it is not so important to understand, but just to know that it can be done. It's OK if I don't know exactly how.
Markus is learning a lot about this process and all the possibilites with these hot water collectors. It is fun to see his brain ticking. The collectors are very popular in Eastern Europe and as the cost of energy goes up in the states, I think they will catch on there too. It is a very efficiant way to heat water without natural gas. There are so many ways to heat and cool without fossil fuels. The magical sun has much to offer.
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