Sunspots: Collected Facts and Solar Fiction — Steve Baer (1975)

Steve Baer — Zomeworks Corporation, Albuquerque, New Mexico — June 1975 Illustrated by Criss-Cross Art Workshop Library of Congress catalog number: 75-20779 Dedicated to Theodore Baird

Prior books listed: Dome Cookbook (Lama Foundation, out of print); Zome Primer (Zomeworks Corporation).

Structure

11 chapters mixing factual solar science with interspersed solar fiction (marked in italics in the original). Fiction pieces are titled distinctly and appear within technical chapters.

Chapter 1: The Sun

Facts

Earth is closest to the sun in January (91,350,000 miles), farthest in July (94,455,000 miles) — 3.4% difference, ~7% intensity variation
Earth spends 186 days in Northern Hemisphere, 179 in Southern (asymmetry from elliptical orbit)
Solar radiation at sea level: up to 1.5 cal/cm²/min = 332 BTU/sq ft/hr (1 Langley = 1 cal/cm²/min; to convert Langleys to BTU/sq ft, multiply by 3.69)
Orientation table: percentage of sunshine intercepted at misalignment angles (0°=100%, 25°=90.6%, 45°=70.7%)

1.6 Antarctic Heat Collector: A south wall collector in Albuquerque is parallel to the earth’s horizon at a point 700 miles north of the Antarctic; closest land is Dougherty Island. A 45°-tilted collector in Albuquerque is parallel to the horizon 1200 miles north of Easter Island.

Fiction pieces

1.8 Shadows: Helicopters deploy giant shrouds to shade the homes of dissidents going solar. “It was a method of non-violent control for dissidents who were disconnecting from the power system and going solar. No solar energy if you are in the shade.” Local governments use shrouds surgically — “shading a house, a demonstration, or even, as in the case of X, a family picnic.”

1.9 The Sun Riots: A crowd at a demonstration uses foot-square mirrors to focus sunlight on a police car, setting it on fire. “Give ‘em some sunshine.” The crowd is silent — “They just looked so funny—a whole crowd of them standing just as still as could be holding onto those mirrors.” Police can’t confiscate mirrors. “But officers, I’m just usin’ this mirror ‘cause I’m combin’ my hair—no law against combin’ your hair, is there?”

Chapter 2: Energy

Key analogies (Baer’s characteristic teaching style):

A car crash at 60 mph = 311 BTU = the solar energy falling on one square foot for one hour
Boulder Dam (725 ft) is not high enough to warm its water 1°F on impact
1 BTU = 778 foot-pounds; a 778-ft-high waterfall of water warms 1°F
1 BTU raises 1 pound of water 1°F; 1,000 BTU evaporates 1 pound of water
A 3×4 ft south-facing window admits as much energy per winter day as needed to feed a man (12,000 BTU/day diet = 3½ kWh)
Conversion table: 1 kWh = 3,413 BTU; 1 Langley = 3.69 BTU/sq ft

Fiction: 2.8 Portrait of a Gasoline Drinker: A gas station attendant secretly drinks gasoline from customer cars.

Fiction: 2.13 The Baskers: A sun oil (possibly radioactive) enables humans to photosynthesize, spawning a migration to the Southwest, vigilante killings of lethargic baskers, and family disputes. Later found to cause sterility; shipped to “underdeveloped countries” as population control.

Fiction: 2.14 Retrieving Mechanical Energy (italicized): “You can always turn mechanical energy into thermal energy, but it is not so easy to turn thermal energy into mechanical energy… Mechanical energy can be taken back from thermal energy, but only as a kind of tax on the transfer of heat between two temperatures.”

Chapter 3: Basic Technology

Government policy critique (1975):

“The response of our government to the energy crisis has been to pour hundreds of millions of dollars each year into atomic energy research and almost nothing into wind, solar, or geothermal energy research.”
“One of the most dangerous traits of our government, engineers, and businessmen is the compulsion for single nation or world-wide solutions.”

Ice ranch proposal: In Albuquerque at least 6 feet of ice per year can be harvested from shallow ponds — over 300 lbs/sq ft. Ice ranch at $0.01/pound: $3/sq ft = $125,000/acre. Electrically produced ice costs $0.15/100 lbs; an ice-pond acre saves ~$19,000/year in electricity.

Yis-sol pump: Levi Yessir demonstrated a simple solar-powered pump at the 1968 Solar Energy Convention — similar to Savery steam engines of 1700, exploiting modern liquids with different thermodynamic properties.

Chapter 9: Engines

Gravity engines: Not perpetual motion — they use gravity as a spring. Convection is the most fascinating class. Baer identifies the diving engine as “the most promising.”

Diving engine (Zomeworks built and tested): Air pistons in water, with a regenerator passing gas between hot and cold sides. Resembles an Ericson engine (constant-pressure regeneration). Low temperatures (under 160°F), low pressures, easy repair. “Noises such machines make are slow and peaceful: gurgling and thumping noises rather than high speed whining noises. The parts are easy to repair — some tape, some solder, a stick whittled to shape, some chewing gum.” Bill Mingenbach suggested “seaweed” (material inside cylinders to promote heat transfer). Published in Coevolution Quarterly, Summer 1974, pp. 80-87.

Patent Office visit (spring 1973): Baer visited the U.S. Patent Office at Crystal City, Virginia. Found two 1972-73 patents with drawers full of prior art already describing their features. Recommends public disclosure before patent filing (US law allows 1-year grace period).

9.9 Cooling buildings with convection: “A house is a shade sandwich — the roof on one side, the earth on the other.” Loop of tubing through house and onto roof, filled with liquid. At night after roof cools below interior temperature, convection begins: house gives heat to fluid, fluid rises to roof, radiates to sky, returns cooled. “A combination engine-refrigerator.”

9.10 Reverse juices: Water below 39°F and heavy water below 52°F are “reverse juices” — they sink when heated rather than rise. Water’s density anomaly keeps ponds from freezing solid. Baer proposes using this to prevent collector freezing without antifreeze — near-freezing water expands slightly and rises to the storage tank. Fragile: “the slightest failure of the reverse convection causes icing.”

Chapter 10: Skylids

Patent: US Patent No. 3,884,414

Skylids are insulated louvers beneath skylights or behind windows. They open and close by themselves in response to temperature differences via pairs of refrigerant canisters (one outside near edge, one inside near opposite edge). No outside power. The two canisters compare temperatures rather than acting at a set temperature.

History: Work at Zomeworks on the skylid began in 1971. Brought to present state by David Boyd, Dick Henry, and the author. (Note: the Baer House photographs show Skylids installed in the zome.)

Franklin pulse-glass principle: The skylid uses the same principle as the Franklin pulse-glass (a novelty thermometer). Prior uses: Hugh W. Brodie’s Wig-Wag solar radiation instrument (1929); Charles Willard Geer’s heliotropic device, US Patent 2,999,943 (1959).

Technical specs:

Louvers: 22” wide typical; airfoil cross-section (bowed sheet aluminum C-sections over wood ribs); <2 lbs/sq ft; rotate on ball bearings; fiberglass fill between aluminum skins
22” wide × 5” deep louvers easily span 12 ft; 48” wide × 12” thick expected to span 20 ft
Ball bearings: 5/16” bearings support 20-40 lbs with only a few foot-ounces torque
Canisters: 2½” diameter × 16½” long; 80 cu in volume; 0.065” steel walls; 2.5 lbs; 3 lbs of Refrigerant 12; intercepts ¼ sq ft of sunlight
Refrigerant 12 properties: 83 lb/cu ft density; 82 psia vapor pressure; 1.5 psi per °F rise at room temperature
R factor with skylids closed: predicted ~5 (ideal would be R-10+; sealing is the key challenge)
Skylids open at least 95% of Albuquerque winter days

Outside reflectors (10.9): Rough tests by Ron Shore and Baer, February 1974: white or dull aluminum reflector of width equal to skylight below it increases heat gain by more than 30% during hours skylight faces the sun. The reflected light “gets in free” since glass area stays the same temperature.

DrumWalls (10.4): Each drum holds 450 lbs of water. Drawback: lifetime of steel drums. Rheem Manufacturing Co. produced steel drums with plastic liners for bomb shelter water storage (1950s).

Nightwall (10.14): May 1975 experiments with sheets of rigid plastic foam pressed directly against windows. Hinged on one side or top using tape; held by magnetic clips or gravity. Much cheaper than skylids; can be automated using skylid principle.

Chapter 11: Solar Energy Conferences

Factual accounts

First solar conference: Palo Alto, October 1968 — about 65 people, small room with wooden chairs. The 1974 meeting was Fort Collins, Colorado — about 1000 people.

Washington DC meeting (March 21-23, 1973): NSF + University of Maryland. Harry Thomason and son Jack built 3 solar houses in DC for $1-2/sq ft — but Thomason “was kept in the audience. He has not received money from NSF or any other government agency.” Industry representatives: Alcoa Aluminum and Texas Instruments. Industry comment: “The worst thing in the world to do would be to rush ahead and build solar houses prematurely—before all the bugs are worked out—it will give solar heating a bad name.”

Solar Insecticide: NSF grants to solar energy are like releasing sterile male insects — they crowd out the fertile ones. Government research projects are chosen to be sterile. “If the sun is so good, why doesn’t it belong to GE, GM, ITT, or the AEC?”

Solar Vaccination: “Another way to look at the money now spent on solar energy research is that it is being used as a vaccination against the full-blown disease of solar energy utilization.” Active immune state prevents the real epidemic. Avid solar workers get transferred when they become too productive. “It is certainly fortunate that a great deal of success is within reach of the backyard inventor and the small shop.”

ISES meeting (October 1973): Exxon selling silicon solar cells at $20-30/watt, 1½ watts each in polycarbonate housing, 15-year life. Used on offshore oil rigs (warning lights and fog horns). Baer: “I was surprised that the solar cells could supply energy more cheaply than a small wind generator.” NASA Lewis Research Center (described as “an institute to make other institutes feel ashamed of their lack of guards and government limousines”). Talk: “Shaping the Society to Fit Solar Energy” — consisted entirely of computer analysis of automated solar power stations, no mention of people.

Baer’s recommendation: “Let the government promise to buy, at a high price, power from new power generating stations that use solar, wind, tides, and geothermal energy.” Don’t subsidize research; promise a market and let builders take a chance.

Fiction pieces

11.6 The Sun Tax: An organization claims credit for a fraction of sunshine collected and demands payment. “If you can’t tell me what the weather’s going to be tomorrow, why should I pay my sun tax?” Organization claims “incontrovertible evidence that our weather modification is successful… we modify rainfall, cloud cover, and sunshine by at least 3%.”

11.7 The Garbage Can: “Trojan Solar Equipment” — old Ralph (standing always by the side door, silently grimacing at university professors) and Gene (who heckles government representatives and cheers backyard investigators) are fixtures at solar conferences. Their “amateurishly documented articles” and accusations push the solar society to stage a collector race — Trojan vs. “several of the nation’s largest weapons contractors.”

Chapter 4 (additional sections from pp. 35–37)

4.7 Stock Pond Melter: Loop of aluminum pipe and rubber hose filled with methyl alcohol, placed in a frozen pond — keeps a hole open in the ice for livestock water. Experiments in ponds north of Taos. US Patent No. 3,618,569. “I obtained a patent on the stock pond melter, but never built any more than the prototype.”

4.8 A New Kind of Heat Pipe (osmotic heat pipe): Discovered while reading Enrico Fermi’s Thermodynamics: a semipermeable membrane can return liquid condensate from the cold end to the hot end without gravity. Impurities (e.g., salt) added to create a concentration gradient drive pure condensate through the membrane back to the boiling end. US Patent No. 3,561,525. “I am ashamed to say I never once tried out the idea.”

Heat conduction table (Ch. 5.1): BTU per sq ft per inch per hour per °F:

Aluminum: 7,500 Btu
Silver: 2,900 Btu
Copper: 2,060 Btu (approx, OCR unclear)
Iron: ~300 Btu
Water (still): 3.85 Btu
Air (still): 0.163 Btu
Glass: 5.8 Btu
Styrofoam: 0.25 Btu
Glass wool: 0.25 Btu

Chapter 6: Heat Collectors and Houses (pp. 45–52)

6.5 THE BEADWALL

The beadwall (patent applied for), invented by Dave Harrison, is an excellent method of preventing heat loss through a window. The first picture shows styrofoam beads being blown into the cavity between two clear glazings; the second shows them being sucked out. The power for emptying and filling is provided by an ordinary vacuum cleaner. The insulating value can be made whatever one wishes by increasing or decreasing the thickness of the space between the glass. The beads themselves are almost as effective per inch of thickness as the best commercial insulation.

Such elegant inventions as the beadwall indicate that the healthy response of architecture to increasing energy costs may be increased use of glass in building walls rather than a retreat to underground buildings. For more on the wonders of the beadwall see Zomeworks’ beadwall plans and Harrison’s forthcoming article in Solar Energy.

Installation documented: Monte Vista Beadwall Greenhouse (top: Filling; Bottom: Emptying).

6.6 Proper design and materials: South-facing window at 1/5 of floor area is sufficient for Albuquerque. Floor should be brick, concrete slab, mud, or tile — not carpeted. 200 sq ft concrete slab 4” deep warmed 10°F holds 18,660 Btu.

6.7 Sometimes thermal mass is a disadvantage: High-mass buildings make sense for residences (occupied day and night) but not for shops, offices, or schools (daytime only).

6.8 Temperature fluctuation: Comfortable range in a dry Albuquerque climate: 55°F low to 85°F high. “The variations in temperature keep your blood circulating.”

6.9 Reptiles need mammal houses: Thermostat-regulated houses are “Reptile Technology” — the reptile cannot regulate its own body temperature and badly needs external control; the mammal does not. “Obsession with temperature control seems more like Reptile Technology than Mammal Technology. The reptile badly needs it — the mammal does not.”

Source: Steve Baer, Sunspots: Collected Facts and Solar Fiction. Zomeworks Corporation, Albuquerque, New Mexico, June 1975. Library of Congress 75-20779. Read from PDF scan. File: 1975-06-01-sunspots.pdf