As it is another glorious sunny day on the left coast, that blessing is an inspiration for continued musing about how the sun's free irradiance can be converted into better use by others, despite whatever less-than-glorious March weather you may be experiencing.
Under the premise that a solar energy converter with an installed capital cost of less than $2 per peak watt will go a long way towards solving the energy crisis, and.... ... that solar panels, even the less-expensive thin-film or "printed" variety will never get close to that goal of costing, due to flawed estimates of raw materials requirements, and the endemic low-balling the installation costs by zealous stock promoters, and ... ... that solar --> steam conversion is hopeless, and furthermore that the "Solar-Stirling", although it is currently the BEST option which we have available now, is approximately two times too expensive, in terms of capital cost, but .... ... that mirrored devices (or fresnel lens) provide the only possibility for success in solar conversion, due to the low cost per surface area, and the advantages of energy focusing, and .... ... that minimal tracking, such as a parabolic trough, provides the better possibility for success, due to its far lower installed cost, operating cost, and robustness in bad weather, and .... ... that a very efficient source of "free" electrons (low kinetic energy) can be the most direct path which leads to solar conversion, given that the coupling of solar photons to free electrons is proven, and... ... given that creating a supply of free electrons efficiently will demand an efficient "cold cathode" and possibly the inherent advantages of maximizing DPSR (Dicke-Preparata-Super-Radiance) ... which inolves a kind of rough coherency in the coupling function.... ERGO the chain of logic set forth above, leads to a complicated scenario, which fortunately has some important parts which have been researched prior to now. In order to present a better case for a particular hybrid concept. which was alluded to in a recent past posting, here is the set-up. Part 1 History Fifty years ago, mas o menos, it was discovered that a cathode surface coated with magnesium oxide will emit electrons even when cold. IOW - there was no dependency on the Edison effect. Prior to that time, almost all cathode emission required significant energy input. This discovery at first seemed to be a major breakthrough- since up till that time,all radio tubes, even diodes, needed to have the cathode heated by a sub-system - and that was wasteful of energy. Of course the "other" breakthrough, the transistor, was already coming into rapid development and production at the same time, and this shift to the transitstor killed off most of the interest in what was then known as the "MgO cold-cathode effect". It should be noted that magnesium oxide is itself a semi-conductor, and that the effect was/is most likely the historical precedent for electron tunneling. BTW - if any reader has historical information to correct this assessment, please let me know. I do not think that the word "tunneling" was ever applied to the "MgO cold-cathode effect". Anyway, there was a seminal study done by researchers at Philco which is still available on the net. Philco was the corporate name for the Philadelphia Storage Battery Company; which was a pioneer in early radio and television and former employer of Philo Farnsworth, inventor of cathode ray tube television. Many think that Philo "was" the name behind Philco, but this does not seem to be the case. For a time Philco, like RCA, was almost the icon and poster-boy for early HiTek; and the company produced quality radio and phonograph gear in conjunction with RCA under their famous "Victrola" brand, including the classic "cathedral-shaped" wooden radio sets which are often seen in old movies. The company was bought by Ford in 1961 and the name was abandoned. Too bad. Philo himself went on to other pursuits involving energy - especially the "Farnsworth Fusor" although it is my contention in this bit of historical revisionism, that: had Philo been able to team up with Robert H. Dicke, in order to pursue cheap solar conversion, then the USA would have never gotten itself embroiled to such an extent in an energy crisis. Anyway - there is plenty of evidence that in the historical context, two of the most creative geniuses of all-time are today still largely unrecognized. Both should have won the Nobel prize, but sometimes history is unkind and never gets revised. Hopefully, that will not be the case for Philo Farnsworth and Robert H. Dicke . Jones
