HARNESSING THE SUN.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 13394, 30 May 1914, Page 7

HARNESSING THE SUN.

"The time will come/ when. Europe rhust stop lier mills for want of, opal. Upper Kg'ypt, then, with her never-ceas-ing' sun-power, will invite the European manufacturer to remove his, machinery and erect his mills on the firm ground along the sides of the alluvial plain of the Kile, where an amount of motive power may be raiany. times greater than that now employed by all /the manufactories of Europe." With p-ikis quotation,; Mr A. S, JL Ackei-raaftn, » the secretary o,f the Society of Engineers, introduced to a meeting, of that institution in London the first data offi.tinlly made public of the most recent attempts to harness the sun's power. Mr Ackermann. hasbeen\ engaged for four year's "upon testa both in America and Kgypt of tho possibilities of thcapparatus'pow musei ; Tbe-teinperature of the nun, said Mr Ackermann, can be estimated at 6000 degrees Centigrade. Of the total . quantity . of radiation, anting at the outer sui-faco. 0/ our atmosphere, (\) pe,r cent, is transmitted to the earths surface. It is tins, 7° PF; C *"S. *#}] . w"hich - engineers are concerned j, for it represents 'the maximum quantity of heat available for transformation into mechanical energy. The maximum energy available from the sun had been calculated '■ to b.e. equivalent to .4440 h.p. ner.aere. a figure which had naturally, excited the cupidity of inventors in the .pa«t. rnterpreted Vn ternift of a strip of land a single mile in' width along the western coast of America, the southern coast ( >f the Mediterranean., tho sides of the Nile in Upper K«>pt. the sides of the Euphrates and Ti^vix for 500 miles tVoili the Persian (iulf, anil on the/rain-lea-s ])ortions of thp shtires of the Ke<J Sea the fuii '" allowed for ten million encines each of 100 brake horse-nowev. Mr A fl l«cnnann discussed in detail tlie iuachinery working -.in Egypt for the generation of ste.im power by the focusintf'of the sitnls'rays by means of mirrors. s He saidHhat the Meadi abgorber had given the best results. A newspaper representative, making ''}- nuiries amongst thope interested .in tbo Ecvptian "expeiiments, learned that, evtvi -tt the pt'Cßcnt sta;?e in the harnessing ni. HuWpowev, a steam generator nf this . character could compete m the tropic^ r'with a coal-burning plant using coal at |: 'Wlod per ton. 4 ,The present cos^of coal '-\k many tropical couritnes may be taken !»'lw> no less than £3 per ton.