Solar PSA: A South-Facing Window Is Already a Solar Collector

Here's my latest Solar PSA on how a south-facing window is already a solar collector:


"Any window that sees direct sunlight is a solar collector. You can learn how to use that free energy to make your home more comfortable and secure. Caulk and seal the window against drafts. Install storm windows on the exterior, interior, or both. Cover the window at night with an insulating curtain to prevent conduction, convection, and radiative heat loss. A valence above the window will stop night-time drafts and reduce condensation. A sunny window can double as a greenhouse for starting seedlings or growing house plants. Expand the solar space below, above, or beside the window with a windowbox solar air or water heater. You can even design a living system to provide fresh vegetables and fish year round while producing space heat, cleaning the air, and reducing waste. A south-facing window is already a solar collector. Learn how to use it."


I made the following four 30 second public service announcements for public access TV around 1991. They served as intro and outro to the videos of the Boston Area Solar Energy Association lectures (http://www.basea.org) I shot and cablecast on Cambridge Community TV (http://www.cctvcambridge.org/) for a few years. The tape archive of all those lectures needs to be digitized.

I made the following four 30 second public service announcements for public access TV around 1991. They served as intro and outro to the videos of the Boston Area Solar Energy Association lectures I shot and cablecast on Cambridge Community TV for a few years. There is still a tape archive of all those talks by national and world class energy experts that could be digitized if anyone was interested.




30 seconds of solar history (based on the book A Golden Thread by John Perlin and Ken Butti and independent research) along with modern, working examples, often hidden in plain sight.



Energy sources broken down by btu (though I'm not quite sure my math is correct).



These two trick questions were collaborations with the polymathic Ed Hill.





I made another set of 15 second spots back in the late 1970s and early 1980s for the Urban Solar Energy Association, the precursor of BASEA which hosted workshops and solar barnraisings as well as monthly lectures and talks. Those PSAs went to the local TV stations and, if memory serves, two channels ran them at least once. There may even be a 2 inch tape somewhere in my archives. That was the first south-facing window is already a solar collector PSA. The others were "A south-facing porch can be a sunspace or greenhouse. Learn how to use it at the Urban Solar Energy Association.

Recently, I put all I know about Simple Solar online in eight video installments that add up to about a half hour.
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/09/simple-solar-parts-1-2-and-3.html
http://solarray.blogspot.com/2009/12/simple-solar-parts-4-through-8.html
Al Gore is doing 24 hours of Climate Reality on Current TV on September 14. I wonder how many minutes will be devoted to solutions rather than describing the problem and persuading the unconvinced. An inconvenient truth about "An Inconvenient Truth" is that it was very light in the solutions department.

I say Solar IS Civil Defense. At least that level of solar is affordable, available, and practical today whatever Climate Reality you inhabit.

My Solar Christmas

As a Christmas gift, I donated solar ovens to people in the refugee camps around Darfur. For the people there, who are at risk every time they have to leave the camp to seek scarce fuel, a solar oven can mean survival.

Jewish World Watch sends two solar ovens to the Iridimi and Touloum refugee camps in Chad for $30.

There are other solar oven programs as well.

This video from German CARE is especially close to my heart because it shows a woman in one of the 3 international displaced person camps they run in Easten Chad using a solar oven and a "haybox" or retained heat cooker to prepare a meal.



The haybox is simply an insulated box into which you place a hot pot. The heat has nowhere to go but into the food. You can also use a stone as a heat reservoir: heat the stone, place it in the box with a pot of food, cook. It's an old, old technique updated with solar. I love these ancient solutions to common problems.

Here's another youtube report on a solar cooker workshop held in Nyala, Sudan under the auspices of the Darfur Peace and Development Organization.



I also gave the gift of bees and trees as I do every year through Heifer International. Donate bees, trees, rabbits, geese, chickens, goats, as well as heifers to a project from their catalog somewhere around the world, including the US, in the names of your loved ones.

I like to give bees because they are all about pollination and improving agricultural production. Investment in pollination in these days of colony cluster disease is especially important.

I like trees because they are also a carbon offset. I've given a decade and more's worth of 60 trees a year to Heifer International. That should do something to absorb some of the carbon my energy use has released to the atmosphere.



Last but certainly not least, I also gave a few solar LED flashlights and AA battery chargers to friends and family. These Bogolights are very well designed with one button (on and off) and one screw to secure the battery bay. There's even a phosphorescent band so you can find the flashlight in the dark. They work as reading lights too. I know because I tried them out. They also use standard AA rechargeable batteries and allow for battery switching, charging one set of batteries while using another set in a second device.

Bogo means "buy one, give one" by which they mean, you spend $25 to buy one for yourself and the company sends a second to somebody in the developing world. You can even choose where and what program. A good deal.

I gave these solar flashlights because

Solar IS Civil Defense

Solar Fountain Harvard Square

Harvard Square, November 2007

Ecological Design Principles
by Bill McDonough

Waste equals food
Use only available solar income
Respect diversity
Love all the children







Harvard Square, October 2007

This is a Solar IS Civil Defense arrangement.

The posters around the fountain include A South-Facing Window Is Already a Solar Collector and reproductions of historic WWII posters:



Ambrose Spencer has a larger solar fountain that he displays from time to time and I just read about Charles Goldman's portable solar fountain that he walked from Brooklyn to the Bronx.

click for movie
Ambrose Spencer and SunToys at AltWheels 2005

Video courtesy of http://energyvison.blogspot.com

For years, I've been recommending that people take these things to the public squares and most especially the farmers' markets, a core constituency of any green movement, as in the story "Mr Franklin's Folks".

It's all part of a Solar Survival Show and the sooner we start performing it the more likely we are to survive.

Solar in Thirty Second Segments

I made these thirty second public service announcements for public access TV around 1991. They served as intro and outro to the videos of the Boston Area Solar Energy Association lectures I shot and cablecast on Cambridge Community TV for a few years. The tape archive of all those lectures needs to be digitized.



The modern history of solar is hidden in plain sight but the best book I know on the earlier 2500 years is still A Golden Thread by John Perlin and Ken Butti.



I still don't understand the relationship between a calorie and a watt. I understand the btu though. Sorry, physicists.



These two trick questions were collaborations with the polymathic Ed Hill.

Homefront Advantage

I believe it is time to bring the oil war home, especially since fuel prices indicate it's coming this direction whether we like it or not. My gut has been telling me that the homefront attitude of WWII, with its emphasis on belt-tightening and conserving, may be an appropriate response to our current situation.

Doing a little research on WWII slogans I came across a great collection of posters at http://www.state.nh.us/ww2/. You should really look at the pictures but here are some of the words:

Do with less so they'll have enough!

Millions of troops are on the move... is YOUR trip necessary?

Have you really tried to save gas by getting into a car club?

All fuel is scarce. Plan for winter now!
1. Winterize your home!
2. Check your heating plant!
3. Order fuel at once!

Food is a weapon. Don't waste it!

Can all you can. It's a real war job!

Plant a victory garden. Our food is fighting.

Use it up - wear it out- make it do! Our labor and goods are fighting.

I wonder if reproductions of these posters would be useful at Camp Casey or in Washington DC on September 24.

PS: One slogan I'd add for the 21st century is
Solar Is Civil Defense