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Username
Paul Klinkman
Proposer First Name
Paul
Proposer Email
info@klinkmansolar.com
Proposer Last Name
Klinkman
Proposer Phone
(401) 351-9193
Proposer Job Title
Author
Proposed Session Description
I'm writing an 80,000 word, 400 illustration book of my own inventions, “New Climate Solutions: Klinkman's Clever Collection of Climate-Clobbering Claims.” I hope to be on the shelves in time for the Christmas season. In this session we'll examine storing heat in older buildings, then replacing solar power towers from the heliostats every step of the way through the system to solar storage and larger-scale heating applications. We'll examine methods of inhibiting the planet's positive climate feedback loops.
Why is this session important?
My book takes on ignored, mission-critical climate issues. Yale360 on 1/21/20 estimated that 20% of the planet's permafrost would thaw by 2040, and if/when 100% of the permafrost thaws, atmospheric greenhouse gas levels will nearly triple. Our Western states are following a planet-wide trend of exponentially exploding megadrought and megafires. Let's face our newest climate problems squarely, bravely. That's who we are. Yes, crisis is also opportunity. I've heard the joke about people coming to do good and doing very well. Buildings can store solar heat. Buildings should store heat and will store heat in order to achieve ever-increasing fuel displacement percentages. That's clearly in NESEA's future. Can solar focusing down mirrored tubes displace 10%, or eventually 90%, of the fuel consumed in smelting steel? Can we sequester the CO2 produced in solar-assist cement production? Can we capture CO2 almost exclusively with solar energy, photosynthesis aside? Iceland generates power in winter. The Drake Landing housing development displaces 97% of its winter heating needs with geothermal storage. Can we enhance existing geothermal power plant production by pouring concentrated solar heat into the local ground seasonally? If enhancement works, why not 100% enhancement and 0% geothermal? Why not inexpensively solar-heat the interior of a local hill and then generate megawatts of dispatchable steam power all winter? Progress eventually happens. I'm venturing into brand new ground and I call on NESEA stalwarts to affirm or disprove my claims and salvage if possible.
Diversity and Inclusiveness
You're encouraged to listen to your elders. I'm turning 69 in June.
Learning Objectives
Discover and incorporate new methods of storing solar-source heat in older buildings.
Understand how to store solar heat at industrial scale and at ever-higher temperatures.
Gain new perspectives on approaching 100% coverage for renewable grid electricity.
Understand our options for tackling mission-critical R&D aspects of planetary climate change, starting with climate's largest positive feedback loops.
Has this session been presented before?
No
Additional Comments
Last year I organized a workshop for New York Yearly Meeting of Friends (Quaker). However, I don't see a link so that you could watch the video. I keep amassing more and more innovations, especially this year, so videos of previous workshops won't be perfectly representative of my performance, but I keep things moving, I answer questions pretty well and there are usually engineers in the audience.
Session Format
Interview or structured conversation among panelists

Strongest Content Connection - NYC 2022

Anything else you'd like to tell us about your session proposal?
The technology gap shall keep growing wider once this book comes out. I have 32 categories of new gadgets, but I want to focus on the planet's big picture in my limited time. We'll curb fossil fuel use and we'll curb the planet's exponential feedback loops. The best place in an existing house or building to store heat is usually the center of the lowest floor. I already do that in my zero fuel, off-grid West Greenwich greenhouse. The greenhouse is sustainable and quite affordable, also inherently low humidity plus 150% of weak winter sunshine. It turns out that a strong enough solar lighting/heating system can triumph even over weak insulation and a few single pane glass windows - now that's an effective system! Pictures are at klinkmansolar.com Architects never think of insulating the center of a concrete basement floor because the local subsoil insulates well. Putting even an extra 10 degrees C. of heat into the existing concrete slab and the subsoil below it will store much of the heat for days. Optimally a heat pump draws on this slab at night to heat a building's second floor heating zone. I don't see why an economical 90% fuel displacement can't be reached. I have designed a modular mat that lays on the concrete slab for good heat transmission into and out of the slab while insulating the room above from this heat. A big box store or a factory can have one section of their floor slab reserved for heat storage and another section, preferably near a big freezer unit, for coldness storage. Why overpay for electricity? Dessication to prevent all mold growth is vital, just as dessication is a vital engineering problem inside any refrigerator/freezer. I solve a critical solar cosine angle problem by deploying multiple solar receivers for every heliostat. My heliostat mirror surfaces are sectioned to generate small sections of slightly concentrated near-parallel light. They aim at my insect eye receivers. Each receiver section bends the light (think of light getting bent in optical fibers) using many thin, parallel sets of reflecting surfaces. This light-bending lattice also happens to exclude all birds and bats. At the far end of each receiver, a mirrored tunnel filled with near-parallel concentrated sunlight carries the sunlight to its destination. These mirrored tunnels can be merged into megatunnels perhaps 4 meters high by 3 meters wide, for industrial heating purposes. We can gently shrink the widths of these tunnels at the back end to create extreme solar concentration that achieves industrial strength temperatures. We absolutely must enhance the refreezing of our planet's remaining permafrost in winter, or else. I recommend simple air pipes that move the Arctic midwinter wind underneath winter's insulating snow pack. We need to enhance winter pack ice formation on the Arctic Ocean. My wind-powered seawater pump boosts itself up on its ice pack after it creates each few inches of new ice on top of the old ice. Normal is perhaps 14 feet of sea ice depth. Real white snow is effective. White paint wouldn't deliver the same environmental side effects. Arctic restoration will be expensive for the world, but not one thousandth as expensive as doing nothing. An airdrop of water in the middle of a megafire is still an energy hog. We need many new energy-efficient ways of inhibiting megafires. We need to stop the megafires before the West dries up further. We also need ecological restoration. Some of this restoration work we can do quickly, and we should understand our goals here. I have Rhode Island Solar Energy Association memorabilia in boxes in my basement. I inherited them from Domenic Bucci, long-time RISEA President, after he died. Domenic was my mentor during my early greenhouse prototyping.
Reviewer 1
Bayer, Sara
Proposal #
124
Committee Decision
Rejected

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