Table of Contents

MEOW

MEOW is the Milwaukee Energy Optimization Workgroup, or if you'd prefer a recursive acronym, the MEOW Energy Optimization Workgroup. The purpose of the group is to explore different ways of generating, storing, and using energy in an efficient, reliable, and conservational manner in order to improve our lives and foster a respectful attitude toward the forces of nature from which this energy is provided. What does this mean? We get together and find ways to gather and store energy and put it toward meaningful uses. We look at what we're using energy for and why. We look beyond our current energy paradigm and find ways to make improvements. We have fun and build community through the creative process (i.e. making things) because if someone should do something about it, it may as well be us doing it.

Jack: I'm basically hoping to get people together to build things. Awesome things. Energy is the foundation of existence and I think it's one of the most interesting and important aspects of human life to consider. Energy is also at the foundation of our society, and our relationship with energy is changing in some fundamental ways. We'll have to keep up with these changes, and I hope this group will enable us to do that more effectively while having a lot of fun in the process. Here's a graph from the excellent Do the Math blog that illustrates the important question that needs to be addressed:

See also: Galactic-Scale Energy

What's New/Happening?

This is the place to list any projects underway, news, etc.

Meetings: First meeting is planned for Saturday, June 2nd at 1pm. Subsequent meetings will be the first second Saturday of the month at 1pm unless otherwise noted.

October 12th 2013

September 14th 2013

August 8th 2013

July 13th 2013

June 8th 2013

March 2nd 2013

December 1st, 2012

November 3rd, 2012

October 6th, 2012 - AT BARCAMP AT BUCKETWORKS

September 1st, 2012

August 4th, 2012

July 8th, 2012

June 2nd, 2012

Projects

WVO

http://wiki.milwaukeemakerspace.org/projects/ambulance

Solar Air Heating

(add project links for completed things - Jack)

Concentrated Solar Power (CSP)

CSP is a general catch-all term for using mirrors/lenses to concentrate a large area of solar radiation into a smaller area which receives said photonic energies. The primary benefit is increased temperature and the ability “to, like, instantly start things on fire, which is awesome”. This does also result in an increase in DANGER! due to the high temperatures.

Fresnel lenses, which can be found in old rear-projection TVs are one way to do this.

Another is the parabolic dish and the double cylindrical point-focus variant (which I'd like to try building -Jack).

One of our members has also experimented with using a metallized film (mylar/space blankets) and a vacuum to create a variable focal length parabola-ish concentrator (which I'd also like to try building - Jack): “I don't know if this is an appropriate place, but several years ago I looked into making solar concentrators by stretching a metalized plastic film (specifically a “space blanket”) over a circular frame and then pulling a partial vacuum behind it. I made a test piece with a short section of 12” PVC pipe which set fire to a piece of wood in a few seconds. This technique has the advantage of having a variable focal length by simply adjusting the vacuum behind the film. It would be easy to scale it up to much larger diameters. The curve formed is very close to a parabola, so close that I considered the possibility of using it to make a very large, light weight, short focal length telescope mirror with huge light gathering power.“ - The Digital Dentist

Makerspace AE Projects

Rooftop

People: Bob Dionne, Ron Bean

Solar air - there are air access portals…somewhere. Ron probably knows where they are. Probably locations are rooftop, possibly south facing wall. Ron's pretty busy and not sure if he's going to get around to it this year. Someone needs to go up there with Tom to make sure they don't break the roof and figure out how to mount and plumb anything we put up there.

Wind turbines? Bob's your uncle.

Makerspace Power Monitoring

We have LT 100S current sensors, however they measure instantaneous current, so we'd have to find a way to average the measurements.

There are inexpensive sensors that measure up to 10A which would be useful for some circumstances ( Murata 10A)

Anything over 10A goes up to the $7-10 range. ( ICE 50A Triad 130A Honeywell 100A)

Things to decide:

References and commercial products:

Projects:

Parts:

DIY Solar PV

DIY Solar PV starting from cells can potentially save some money. I'd propose that we start with small panels because we already have a small vacuum table, it's easier, and small panels are the least economical in the marketplace. The best guide I've seen is the "Making decent solar panels" series on the otherpower forum. The cells are soldered up, placed between glass and a backing and encapsulated in EVA film before being mounted in a frame. We need:

Gasification

"Green" Sound Reinforcement

When faced with the prospect of limiting energy consumption, I was disheartened to think of all the loud, outdoor music I'd miss out on. Enter: the horn-loaded speaker. What do you do when your most advanced amplifiers provide less than 100 watts and you have a 100-seat theater? You get these. For every 3db increase in loudspeaker sensitivity, you can achieve a similar sound level with only half the power. I'm hoping to put together a capable PA using some of the designs from Bill Fitz-Maurice. I'm finishing up a set of Jack 10s at home right now, but I'll be working on the subs down at the MakerSpace. Since increased efficiency decreases energy use, I'm going to call these “green” and consider this a “green energy” project, and there's nothing you can do to stop me, MWAHAHAHA.

Resources

Solar

Build it Solar - lots of resources and projects

Wind

Biomass & Gasification

Miscellany

Do the Math - musings of a physicist on energy

Group/Contact Information

Contact me, Jack Driscoll, by addressing an electronic mail to my name with @gmail.com appended to it. NO SPACES.