The summer has flown by without a lot of new work on this solar project. I have heard from several new Cricket owners who have inherited their Crickets with their new homes. Some are still working fine, others were left to sit idle and overheated. I’m working on an re-charge kit and instructions for folks who want to re-charge their own systems. All of the systems I have visited this summer have been intact and if not working, ready to be re-charged.

I have acquired 2 Crickets that were abandoned: one is a model A and the other a B. I intend to set these up for experiments comparing the new do-it-yourself system.

My plan is to develop a do-it-yourself system the parts of which can be purchased for about $1000. I would like to lead workshops to show groups of people how to build and install their own systems. We would build one entire system at the workshop and then help the owner install it, while teaching everyone how to evacuate and charge the system. This low-cost system would probably not be eligible for tax credits or utility incentives because the sizing and materials would be dependent on local availability and the needs of the owner. For instance, rather than using hi-tech glazing and selective collector surfacing, we would use standard tempered glass from sliding glass doors and best-quality paint for the collectors. The collectors could be any shape that fits the owner’s roof, and could be increased in area to overcome the losses of the less efficient materials.

The most technical process of the building of the collectors is the silver brazing of the copper tubes in the collector. Silver brazing is a very easy-to-learn skill requiring an oxy-acetylene brazing torch. I recently lead a demonstration of silver brazing to about a dozen hands-on guys who had never seen it. Within minutes they were all able to braze odd copper parts together with strong, reliable joints.

In the 1970s a thriving and rapidly expanding U.S. solar water heating market was destroyed by tax credits and the promise of utility company incentives. The manufacturers and entrepreneurs who had built the industry without artificial incentives were instantly overrun by over-funded companies that were selling the incentives rather than the products that capture free energy and convert it into useful heat or work. Since the dawn of the tax credits for solar energy that sprung up in response to a completely unrelated and rigged oil embargo of the ’70s, solar energy has carried the perception that it is not viable without some form of assistance.

It’s happening now in the PV industry. Government incentives have created a vacuum that China has happily filled over the brim with its capitalism killing build for a loss then takeover the world strategy. Headlines today from the Renewable Energy News at RenewableEnergyWorld.com are disturbing evidence of this  industry-murder-in-progress:

1. Political Reality and the Way Forward for Renewable Energy:Political heavyweights know this about their rough-and-tumble game – you project victory long before the results are in. And when you think you’ve won, you never give your opponent an opening.
2. Asia Report: India Slashes Wind Incentive: India has drastically scaled back tax incentives for wind generation in a move that many fear will halt new wind energy investment while derailing the manufacturing base that has grown up to support that growth
3. Solar Struggles Continue: Q-Cell to File for Bankruptcy: Germany’s Q-Cells, a solar industry giant that helped usher in a new era of solar energy, announced Monday that it will file for bankruptcy, but that it will continue to work to restructure. Since August of last year, several solar companies, including Solon, Solar Millennium, Solyndra, Evergreen Solar and SpectraWatt, have filed for bankruptcy. On Monday, Solar Trust of America, the developer for the 1,000-MW Blythe project, also filed for Chapter 11.
4. Solar Supporter: Clinton to Give Keynote at SPI: This is the year of politics, so who better to speak at America’s largest solar show than perhaps the most skilled politician around

The governments are killing the organic growth of the industry by creating barren hybrid organizations that are dependent on artificial and unnatural nourishment to survive. These hybrids almost never survive unassisted in the wild. Hybrids are greedy, beautiful on the outside, but empty on the inside.

If you want a great solar water heating system, and you want to build one yourself without government or utility assistance, the geyser pump is a good start: copper pipe, copper fins, black paint, aluminum box frames, glass, water, methanol, two refrigeration quality schraeder valves, and the ability to silver-braze the components together. We built the first dozen prototypes in a back yard with primitive tools. Anyone can do this with a little assistance in sizing the pipes and positioning the components. The intent of this Website is to provide that little bit of assistance required for anyone to convert excess solar energy to hot water.

Yesterday I had the pleasure to talk to Matt Carlson and Arnoud Van Houten of Sunnovations. Matt’s the business guy, and Arnoud is the inventor/technical guy. Their web site is www.sunnovations.com. 

I found their web site when I was scouring the web for references to the Copper Cricket. At first glance I thought, “these guys have stolen our technology.” Then, after a bit of thinking, I realized we hadn’t done anything with it for 15 years, the patents have expired, and this is actually what I wanted to see happen: I wanted someone to use the technology. Of course my next step was to see if they had patents. They did. I downloaded their patent describing their version of the geyser pump and studied it carefully. I was pleased to see that not only did the patent refer to our patents, but also to a trade article about our product. The drawings looked like our early prototypes with some minor additions, but after reading further, those little additions were huge. I was very impressed by the improvements they made. Their product is easier to install and will re-create its own vacuum. It doesn’t require a vacuum pump to create an initial vacuum; it uses non-toxic propylene glycol as the antifreeze, and can be installed with plastic tubing. It has novel over-heat protection that dumps the fluid out of the collection plate before reaching 180F. They use standard flat-plate collectors, and don’t worry about nucleation.

We talked for about an hour and a half, mostly Van Houten and I exchanging ideas about the technology, and Carlson talking about their distribution channels. We also talked about how the Internet has changed the game. Remember, in 1995, the year Sage Advance went out of business, the Web wasn’t even public.

When I compare the two systems, I think the Copper Cricket still has a few advantages. I believe they will find that the CC is more efficient when compared with their SRCC certification which is currently under testing.  I think the CC’s pump rate is faster than Sunnovation’s. In the long term, I think the CC will have a longer life-expectancy if a side-arm heat-exchanger is used. I have anecdotal proof that the CC with a side-arm heat-exchanger can remain in perfect operation for over 20 years with out maintenance.

When we discussed nucleation and boiling, Van Houten described the three types of boiling that they have seen: 1) fizzy boiling, where the fluid is full of bubbles as it is ejected from the lifter. This is what we saw when our early geyser pumps were starting up for the first time. It’s similar to when a pot of water is boiling. At first you see almost a complete coverage of the bottom of the pan with tiny bubbles. This type of boiling doesn’t pump fluid very effectively. 2) continuous slug pumping, where large slugs of hot fluid are ejected from the lifters. This is the optimum. I expect this is boiling that occurs at a few large nucleation sites along the tube a foot or so below the fluid level. A single bubble expands rapidly and drive hot fluid out of the lifter. 3) explosive boiling – we saw this type of boiling when we weren’t using nucleation tubes. When the early prototypes without nucleation ran for a week or so, the risers got really hot over 220F before they would discharge. When they did, they exploded with so much force that it rocked the collector stand. It is why we installed the evil check-valve in the faller (the pipe from the vapor condenser outlet to the footer manifold.) After adding the nucleating risers, we were able to remove the check valve.

I look forward to seeing the Sunnovations SRCC rating. I think the Sunnovations product has potential to service the demand in the single-family dwelling market segment. It should be mandatory that single family dwellings install solar water heaters before they are eligible for publicly funded incentives for photo-voltaic systems. Solar water heaters are 5 times more efficient that PVs,

Today I figured out how to pry drawings out of my old MacBook and convert them to web friendly graphics. I still haven’t determined how to get them into a more current drafting program, but after revisiting them for the first time in 18 years, I don’t know if these graphics will be of much use. They describe the methods we used to manufacture Copper Crickets. I believe a version of the Copper Dragon will be more appropriate for the Do-it-yourself builder. You can find them in the Manuals/Docs link on the Web site.

From 1980, when Eldon Haines and Ralph Bartera started working on the Geyser Pump,  to 1995 no one else was able to make one work. Even though the patents were in the public domain and we had installed over 1000 systems throughout the US, and a few in Canada. The technology was widely publicized, in most  home and building related magazines, Popular Science, and all of the solar trade rags. We attended many solar conferences, gave papers, moderated other sessions, and installed many commercial systems for the National Forest Service. We know that several of our competitors tried to replicate the technology, but were  unable to make it work. I’ve blogged about this before. So, I started thinking about why they couldn’t do it.

We had trade secrets. There were things that we didn’t talk about, even though everything was in the patents and articles that were written about us and the technology. The things we didn’t talk about were well hidden from the outside by a thick veil of perceived obscurity. This was not something that we created intentionally. It was something that manifested in the eyes of onlookers because of who we were. First of all, Dr. Eldon Haines was an actual ‘Rocket Scientist.’ He worked for JPL (NASA). He was a nuclear chemist. He invented a neutron spectrometer that went on Lunar and Mars missions. I was studying physics at the University of Oregon. We worked in obscurity, in Eldon’s and then my backyard, testing prototypes. We didn’t have many visitors.

When interviewers asked us why we had no rivals, or when our dealers asked about why no one else could make geyser pumping work, we just mentioned that there were ‘trade secrets.’ In reality the only trade secret was that there were no trade secrets.

There were some important proportion issues, like the size of some parts of the system related to other parts, but there really weren’t any profound secrets that would have kept anyone from building their own geyser pumping system. The only thing that I can think of that may have stymied the attempts was that the system had to be perfectly hermetically sealed. It has to be built with the perfection of a refrigeration system. Any leak, no matter how small, will eventually kill the geyser pump effect, unless you’re running the system at atmospheric pressure and replacing any fluid lost to evaporation.

I think most attempts were abandoned because of the belief that there were trade secrets that only someone with advanced scientific knowledge would be able to fathom. If we had been two backyard yokels, with some plumbing ability, no one would have doubted their own ability to plagiarize our technology, but because there was the perception that we were brainy guys, others chalked up their failure to replicate a geyser pump to our propinquity to advanced knowledge.

The dominant reason we were able to make a geyser pump work was that we learned how to silver braze the non-sweatable fittings, and that we removed the sight-glasses and flow-meters that were prone to leaking. Once the system was sealed we discovered that after a week or so of working the boiling surfaces in the riser tubes had lost their ability to nucleate bubbles and the system over-heated. We worked on that problem for quite awhile, but eventually solved it, and patented the solution. Solution was the insertion of a slightly smaller diameter tube into the riser tubes creating a self-regenerating nucleation annulus between the inner and outer tubes. This still remains an enigma to us, but it worked so it became a fixture in the production models. I still wonder if it’s necessary or if we solved a problem that didn’t really exist. In any event, just the perception was enough to  obfuscate the simplicity of the technology.

Last week, I was on a familiar road in Springfield, Oregon and remembered that a friend had installed one of our early prototypes there, on his home. I glanced through the trees and saw the back of the system on his roof. Today I looked at my contact list in my phone and found his number. I haven’t talked to him for at least 10 and maybe 20 years. I called the number. A woman answered, and I asked, “Nancy?”. She said yes. We started talking, and she immediately remembered me and said, “we think of you every time the sun is out and we’re enjoying our free hot water.” I told her that’s why I was calling and told her about what I’m doing with this web site. Then I talked to Dan, her husband and he started telling me how wonderful the system has been, and that he had had a leak in one of our experimental fittings about 10 years back, and he was able to fix it himself and recharge the system. He said it hasn’t working at the optimum level since then, but they are still able to turn off the breaker to their electric water heater in May and turn it back on in September or October. They invited me over to take some photos, and I took the opportunity today to ride over on my scooter because it’s supposed to rain here for the next 6 days.

Flat-plate collectors with nucleation risers, and an external Vapor Condenser

This system was installed in 1987, the year we started Sage Advance. These collectors started out with internal vapor condensers made of 1″ copper pipe the width of the collectors. We realized that in hot weather, the density of the solar fluid expanded enough to fill the vapor condenser and then stop the system. We just capped off the internal VC and installed an external VC made of 3″ copper pipe.

Geyser Pump External Vapor Condenser

This is the external vapor condenser. Notice the capped off 1″ pipes protruding from the collector box at the same level as the top of the external vapor condenser. Those are the defunct internal vapor condensers. Also notice the drain port in the top of the 3″ copper cap facing the camera. That’s the resting fluid level in the system. That drain should probably be about 1/2″ from the bottom of the cap. I’m surprised that this system operates at all.

When the weather here improves, I’ve promised to help Dan modify and restart his system. We should be able to get the Delta-T down to less than 20 degrees F.

Geyser Pump Prototype Check Valve

Before we realized the solution to the bubble nucleation problem, we could only get the earlier prototypes to operate by using a check valve. Without bubble nucleation the boiling was so violent that it would drive the cold water back up the faller, so we put in a check valve. We HATED the check valve. It was our only moving part. Therefore, it was evil. This one is still working, but I still hate it and vow to remove it when I help Dan modify the system.

I’ve been thinking about the many people who say they would like to build their own Cricket or Dragon system. When people asked me about this when we were manufacturing and selling systems, my feeling was that it was too complex to do. Several of our competitors in the industry at that time tried to build their own (without our assistance) and failed to get them to work. One even hired one of our installers to troubleshoot their plagiarized  system. But now, that I’m back at the basics stage, I think building system similar to our early prototypes would be a fairly simple thing to do. This weekend I happened to drive by one that we installed in 1985. I saw that it was still on the roof . . I just called the owner. He answered the phone number that I had for him 30 years ago. His system is still working. I’m on my way over there right now to take some photos.

It’s not often that you see coverage of a failed solar heating system in the newspaper. Usually they just die quietly, but in today’s Register Guard was a story about the 18-month-old Lane Community College solar water heater that was damaged when the temperatures got down to 23 degrees F.

I loved the quote from the facilities manager, David Willis,  “Especially with new technologies, there’s always going to be some things that didn’t get worked out,”

Sorry Dave, but solar water heating is not new, and Eugene, Oregon freezes every year.

If you create a system with the potential to fail, it will. I guess the good news is that they think only 18 of the 36 panels were broken.

In my view this was not a catastrophic failure. This failure only killed the collector panels. A catastrophic failure would have burst pressurized water lines in the attic space and flooded the wood floors in the new gymnasium for 4 days.

Too bad they didn’t have access to the Copper Dragon.

Almost everyone I talk to about the Cricket and this site asks why I am doing it. “Are you trying to make a business out of it,” (especially my wife). My answer has been, “I’m not sure.” I just know that the most fun I’ve ever had, and the most rewarding (and lowest paying) career had been the development of this technology. Over the past 15 years I have been developing Web sites for companies, and I’ve marveled at the Open Source Community. I think Open Source may be a good model for pursuing this project.

I have set up an appointment with a friend who has some old Macs and the drafting software we used to create all of our shop drawings and other graphics. I’ll be posting those as soon as I convert them. This will show what we did for production, but I think there is a different market out there for this technology: the do-it-yourselfer. To that end I’ll be trying to put together a design closer to the Copper Dragon that uses flat plate collectors and external vapor condensers. The only modification we made to the Dragon plates was the insertion of about 3′ of tubing down into the risers that was also inserted up into the header.

The Nucleation Chamber is where the magic happens. It took several years for us to discover the reason our geyser pumps only worked for a week or so. It is because geyser pumping requires the creation of steam bubbles, and after a few days all of the nucleation sites for the bubbles had emptied. Without the nucleation sites, no bubbles would form, and no pumping would occur until the riser wall reached a high enough temperature to flash boil. The nucleation chamber traps steam and deposits a bubble into the super heated liquid at the bottom of the annulus, causing it to expand and pump the hot liquid above it into the header manifold.  See the Bubble Nucleation patent.