Thursday, March 12, 2009

Solar Energy From Beer Drinking?

So I was finished work last autumn, sitting on the back porch drinking beer from a can (why waste power getting glasses dirty?) and I noticed my fingers were getting cold. I know, I know, you're thinking the blonde hair colour is definitely NOT dyed. Anyway... I started thinking about the fact that my cold hands were annoying me, and also that holding my beer can was making my beer warm before I get it drunk (drank? drunked? dranked? whatever.)

Anyway, my curious little brain needed to grapple with this concept for a bit but I was just too tired. In my embibing musings, I decided that since the heat trade between my fingers and beer seemed so quick, perhaps this beer can may hold a secret to cheaper electric bills. I decided to see what I could find about using beer can material to create some sort of solar collector. Alas, my procrastination has saved me time once again and since I did nothing, no solar heating happened in my home. But, I did stumble across the same idea on the web recently and it turns out there are a couple of folks doing this very thing... one of them in a huge way.

They're called beer can solar heater furnaces and I found one guy who's made his shop time a lot more enjoyable in the winter thanks to his homemade creation. He has taken a solar powered fan and blows air through a manifold of drilled out beer cans, assembled together to form tubes, and he increases his shop temperature by 30 degrees or so. I love the fact that all he had to do was drink his way into having the raw materials to work with!

So check this guy out and maybe after you're done with your after work guzzling, see if you can fight the urge to look tough... try NOT crushing the can for a change and save them up instead to make your very own solar furnace and save yourself some coin on the old electric power bill!

Here's the link to the Beer Can Solar Furnace guy's video.

Keep inventing!

Energy4Power.

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