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Sure, I know of those, but they are a few (or several) magnitudes away from being a replacement for those 250-300 W solar panels people mount on their rooftops!
These installations use large areas covered with mirrors to concentrate the energy into a single, super-hot point. (The very first solar oven, the Odeillo furnace in France, did not produce electric power, but pollution free heat up 3500 °C, valuable to a lot of industrial processes.) Using moderately sized (maybe like 50 by 20 cm) fresnel cylinder lenses (pressed from cheap plastic), concentrating the radiation to a burning line on absorber immersed in an evaporating liquid would keep the temperature below, or possibly slightly above, the boiling temperature of the liquid. This is quite different from having to handle 3500 °C or molten salts.
For the question of directionality: At a microscopic level, the active element of a PV cell lies at the bottom of a 'valley' with steep mountain sides. The sun goes down behind the mountains long before it goes down at a flat plain. One of the improvements in PV cells for the last decade or two has been to reduce the depth of the valley (or if you like: The height of mountains), to maintain the efficiency over a larger range of angle of incidence. At increasing angle, there is a breakpoint after which power output falls quite rapidly. This has been such an embarassment for the PV manufacturers that even though it has improved significantly, they still do not want to publish diagrams showing the falloff as function of incidence angle, only the output for perpendicular radiation, which really hasn't changed a lot.
I am not surprised that your solar panels charge even on overcast days (I would be surprised if not). But all tests I have read shows that for solar heat collectors, the reduction in energy output is less than for solar panels. Heat collectors will to a larger degree accept radiation from all directions.
The other, 'large scale' directional aspect is pure geometry: If the angle between the surface normal and the direction to the radiation source (the sun) is v, the panel covers only cos(v) of the energy flow, compared to a panel perpendicular to the flow. The only way to compensate for this is to re-orient your panel, preferably with an automatic mechanism following the sun during the day and during the seasons. The cost of the mechanics (and the maintenance of it) may rise the cost of your 'free' solar power noticeably! 
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I hear the argument that solar panels lose efficiency as they heat up, the panels on my house gather the most energy in the summer when there is lots of sun. Obviously there is more sunlight hours in the summer, but I'm saying that even with the heat, they still put out lots of useful power.
I'm glad to jut be a consumer of these wonderful math problems as most of the computations just go right over (around/under/through) my head 
Hogan
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Agreed, but I do tend to get (slightly) more power in May/June than the hotter July and August.
TTFN - Kent
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The temperature dependency of solar panels is promoted strongly here up in the north: Central Norway, where I live at 63° north is like Fairbanks, Alaska. In winter time, the sun doesn't rise much above the mountain tops, and only for a handful of hours a day. Its sloping path through the atmosphere is serval time that at summer time, so a lot of energy is absorbed. Often, there is lots of ice crystals in the air, spreading the rays in all directions. Not to forget: If the panels are mounted with in a fixed orientation, and the angle between the surface normal of the panel and the direction to the sun is v, then the panel area covers only cos(v) of area of the radiation flow, compared to the gross area of the panel. You really should tip your panel up by 63° (at our latitude) and rotated to follow the sun during the day, but the machinery to do it is expensive and may be iced down in the next snowstorm. (On the other hand: Raising the panels to 63° is a good help to keep them from being covered by a meter of snow!)
With all these negative aspects, solar panel proponents bring up this undisputable argument: But the efficiency of solar panels increase when the temperature goes down. So there! That makes them a great solution for Norway at winter time! Disregard all of the critical remarks - they are compensated for by the higher efficiency.
Oh well. The efficiency typically improves by 0.3% per °C. That is the increase in power output, not in efficiency percentage points (such as from 20% to 20.3%, but rather 20.06%). 20 °C colder (that is 36 °F colder) gives you 6% more electricity. Not exactly revolutionary. You gain far more in summer from the sun hitting your panels perpendicularly, the rays' shorter path through the atmosphere, the longer days, and the lack of icy frost or snow on your panels. Nice if you need electricity to run your air condition. That is not a primary need up north. We need the power in winter time.
Even here, solar panels provide some electricity during the winter months, but those promoting it are usually very reluctant to show their actual energy meter readings over the year. They are much more eager when they can talk about the higher efficiency in winter, without quoting any figures.
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Over 40 years ago I did a degree in Energy Studies, shortly after the Middle East "oil crisis". Everyone was looking at alternative energy sources to oil. (At the time Global Warming / Climate Change was barely being talked about). The peak of my mathematical achievements was understanding and reproducing the Betz law and verifying that theoretical limit. I was never able to repeat that feat, wouldn't even know where to begin these days!
As for your idea, what are you using to pump the condensate back into the tube of boiling liquid/high pressure gas? [Note; I am not saying that the energy needed to do that outweighs the energy output from the generator. I think it probably will, and will certainly reduce the overall efficiency of the system.] But you might want to look up "steam injector"; a device fitted to steam locomotives that uses the high pressure steam from the boiler to inject feed water into the boiler. Doesn't sound like it should be possible but it works. That said, injectors are usually the trickiest bit of a steam loco to design, maintain and operate.
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DerekT-P wrote: what are you using to pump the condensate back into the tube
Hehe ... you make it sound as if this is something I've got ready to put into production! That is far away, and I honestly don't expect it to ever become reality. When I present the idea, one of my goals is to understand why the idea sounding so great to me hasn't been realized by others a long time ago. So I hope for other people to tell me what's wrong with it, the reasons why it hasn't been realized.
Your response is great example of that. So thanks a lot . I haven't been considering that as a problem. To try to make up a response:
If the evaporated liquid, the gas, had not condensed to significant degree, the gas pressure would be roughly the same from the boiling surface, through the nozzle and turbine, all the way to the surface of the liquid on its way back. The nozzle would reduce the pressure in the turbine chamber part of the circuit to a lower value in than in the boiling chamber; I don't know by how much. And one fundamental idea is that the vapor does condense, reducing the pressure at the back side of the turbine. So the pressure at the surface of the condensate will be significantly lower than that in the boiling chamber. I don't know how much lower. The more reluctant the vapor is to condensate, the smaller the difference. This difference must be overcome by a pump. Maybe the pump will take a significant part of the energy produced by the dynamo. I guess that it depends on the properties of the liquid/vapor.
One possible solution:
To serve as an alternate to solar panels, I guess that I would mount a stack of such evaporation tube, maybe 6 to 8 of them, in a frame a meter tall, 50 cm wide (if the tubes are 50 cm long). The front lenses would concentrate an energy inflow of 50 by 16 cm per tube. Raw energy inflow, perpendicular to the sun, is 1100-1300 W/sqm. There are several minor losses, but at best we could get 80 W to each tube, close to 500 W for a half square meter, 6-tube frame. (This is not to say that I expect to achieve 500 W electric power from a half square meter panel; it is the theoretical very maximum with no losses and efficiency of 100%. For that area, solar panels provide about 100 W under ideal conditions - that is what we try to beat!)
Assume we let only 5 of 6 tubes be boiling at the same time; they cyclically get a rest period. If the tubes are 3/4 filled with liquid at the start of each cycle, most of it could evaporate without any refill (if that black heat absorber is located near the bottom). When the tube gets closed to empty, it is given a rest: The condenser lens is turned away to stop the boiling, the tube's surplus pressure is let out, and new (i.e. recycled) liquid is poured in, without having to fight against any high pressure. The condensation chamber would most likely be over-pressurized, so it can press the condensate into the now low-pressure evaporation tube, or can at least help a pump doing it with moderate energy consumption. Filling the tube with new liquid would probably be quick, compared to the cycle time, so the tube could come back into operation within a short time; it wouldn't be unproductive for the full 1/6 of the cycle time.
If the six tubes in a stack each have nozzles to the same turbine wheel, electricity production would be fairly stable. The five active tubes would ensure that the pressure in the turbine/condensation chamber is more or less maintained, to drive the condensate back to the tube currently under filling without the need for a supplementary pump.
Again: Someone who knows this field may rise up and declare: That wouldn't work, because ... That is exactly what I want to hear: Qualified objections / explanations of why my ideas are not workable in practice
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trønderen wrote: you make it sound as if this is something I've got ready to put into production
Disappointed if you've not got a prototype running by now...
Bear in mind there's a lot more to boiling a liquid than just raising its temperature to boiling point - look up "latent heat" if not sure. Plus of course the boiling point rises with pressure; (why tea tastes awful up a mountain - the water's not hot enough). So the more pressure you want (to drive your turbine) the more heat you have to supply.
In terms of feed water (or whatever liquid you're returning to the boilers)... you could use a valve arrangement such that each tube in turn has a part at the top of the tube that can be isolated (you'd only need 1% - 2% of the total volume). Open that valve, and the condensate can literally just trickle in under gravity. Close the inlet valve, open the valve to the main boiler, and already the sudden increase in pressure on the newly-admitted liquid will significantly raise its temperature. Of course now instead of one moving part - the turbine fan - you have many. Valves and camshafts and control systems, and apart from anything else, these all introduce losses into the system.
Another feature to consider is super-heat - a technique where you pass the high-pressure steam back through the boiler which further dries it and adds additional energy. Once again, technology from steam railway locomotive design, that can make a huge difference to performance, especially if you have "spare" heat to provide - which you do, since you can add extra tubes at relatively low cost and with free solar energy to power them.
Regarding the turbine - there HAS to be significant pressure drop across it, otherwise you're not taking out any energy. The whole objective, really, is to maximise that pressure drop (and condensing your steam/vapour in the process is the best way to reduce the volume, and thus pressure).
Overall, though, my doubts are around getting a high enough rate of heating + evaporation to do anything more than light a single LED.
That said, your idea (or a version of it) has already been generating hundreds of megawatts out in the Mojave desert, for many years. But the site takes up hundreds of acres, with a vast array of parabolic reflectors concentrating sunlight onto a boiling vessel that generates steam to power a conventional turbine. In fact I answered a question on Quora about this only a couple of days ago: Quora[^]
You could certainly scale it down, but this installation suggests that you will need to collect a lot more sunlight than your lenses could do.
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You might like to research the Gas Powered Refrigerator. Not "gasoline", but many decades ago (5 or 6 or so), domestic refrigerators that ran on town gas (produced from coal) were available; and much to my amazement, at least here in the UK, they are still available for campers and caravanners.
And of course if nothing else, a refrigerator is a heat pump!
So in principle, an air-to-whatever heat pump should be possible. But as ever, the devil will be in the detail, and most likely the killer will be efficiency. Can you get sufficient quality heat from your thermal collectors as the energy source to replace the gas flame? I have no idea, I'm an electrical engineer.
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BarrRobot wrote: but many decades ago (5 or 6 or so)
Not even new then
The History of the Propane Refrigerator[^]
Choosing a Recreational Vehicle is all about deciding whether to power it with electric or propane. Electric means you need to have an external outlet which usually means a campground with a hook up.
Propane can power everything that electric does. Plus provide a hook up for an external propane grill.
I would be surprised however if you can't get both in one vehicle.
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So it seems to be impossible to create an automation task on the iPhone for certain events unless you manually allow the task to run.
I can automatically send a text message to Phil every day at 4am saying "Wake up, you filthy monkey!", but can't automatically turn on airplane mode when I arrive home. The second one asks me whether to run it and there's no option to disable this. Defeats the purpose of having a stupid automation in the first place. (I don't want to do any of these, just examples)
If you look at all the events that don't allow automatic execution, all are something that are a "security risk" in the sense that you can use them to blow things up remotely. Or something similar.
Am I imagining things or is someone at Apple super paranoid?
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Nope, you're not alone. I work with a guy that has a race tracking app on Android and Apple. In Android, he has a timer and every time the timer goes off, Android gets the GPS, does some math and goes back to sleep. This is great for battery life. On Apple, this isn't possible. The OS will trigger a GPS event when the device has moved an undisclosed amount and the app can receive the update. This means that the OS is sampling GPS fairly often to decide when to kick off the event. Its the best that Apple offers...
Hogan
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Indivara wrote: Am I imagining things or is someone at Apple super paranoid?
You'd think it's your phone, you can do whatever you want with it, right?
People complain when Windows doesn't let them do something they want (or does something they don't want it to), as if it's now Microsoft's computer, not theirs.
iPhones were never theirs to begin with.
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#Worldle #634 2/6 (100%)
🟩🟩🟩🟩⬜↖️
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🎉
https://worldle.teuteuf.fr
no map needed
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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Had my Covid booster this morning and my immune system is clearly overreacting. Every bone hurts, my sats are in the low 90's, and I'm freezing: my hands are shaking and my teeth are chattering despite it being 21C in here.
I do hope this doesn't last too long ...
"I have no idea what I did, but I'm taking full credit for it." - ThisOldTony
"Common sense is so rare these days, it should be classified as a super power" - Random T-shirt
AntiTwitter: @DalekDave is now a follower!
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I checked last week and they weren't available in this area yet.
After reading your post I'm not sure I want to go with this round.
We and the SO had all our shots, boosters and we still got it.
Hope you get over it quickly.
I don't think before I open my mouth, I like to be as surprised a everyone else.
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate
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Mike Hankey wrote: We and the SO had all our shots, boosters and we still got it.
Never had a booster. Got the rona. It was rough, but since then I've stopped doing everything I used to in regards to masking, washing hands 30 times a day, worrying, etc. Never had a problem since getting it and it's been a year. It's almost like antibodies work.
Jeremy Falcon
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We travel a lot so we protect when out and about but at home we don't.
Oddly we picked up the rona on a trip Québec. Took us a month to get over it.
I don't think before I open my mouth, I like to be as surprised a everyone else.
PartsBin an Electronics Part Organizer - Release Version 1.3.0 JaxCoder.com
Latest Article: SimpleWizardUpdate
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Mike Hankey wrote: Took us a month to get over it.
Glad you got through it ok. For me it was a rough two weeks. Either way, antibodies baby!
Jeremy Falcon
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![Rose | [Rose]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/rose.gif) Not as bad as you, but we both had more reaction to Pfizer boosters (#3, 4) than either of the original A-Z shots. Got over it in a day or so. She blamed it on having the fluvax at the same time, but I'm not convinced of that.
Software rusts. Simon Stephenson, ca 1994. So does this signature. me, 2012
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i had very sore upper arm more than usual though. couldn't sleep. lasted almost a week
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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We are due for our fifth booster shots as well. I hope it deals more kindly with us.
About a month ago, my youngest daughter who lives with us, came down with Covid. She was coughing and wheezing all over the house and I was convinced we will both be infected, but we came through without so much as a sore throat. I am sure it was the vaccination and boosters that protected us! We will not miss these latest boosters.![Java | [Coffee]](https://codeproject.global.ssl.fastly.net/script/Forums/Images/coffee.gif)
Ok, I have had my coffee, so you can all come out now!
modified 17-Oct-23 18:54pm.
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Yes, get the boosters.
"A little time, a little trouble, your better day"
Badfinger
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I've got neck and back pain which I've not experienced before and a very sore arm which I have had before
Covid has certainly got it in for you though - hope it doesn't last long.
In a closed society where everybody's guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity. - Hunter S Thompson - RIP
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