Subject: Re: LPG and gosh, gee whiz

From: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 1996 01:05:09 -0400

To All,
As far as fuel goes anything that is carbon based and is burned is not doing
the air any good. I have flown into LA and you could smell the smog at 20,000
feet. I have been caught in a "rain storm" form a coke quenching tower and
had my shirt dissolve off of my back. Ask someone at the plant as to what was
in the steam from the quench tower and they would say, "Just steam". Right.
The Park Service does a four cord charcoal burn as a demo twice a year at
Hopewell Furnace NHS. The cloud of smoke is good theater but in the old days,
they were 20 cord burns with dozens going at the same time.
I started with coal but I had to switch to gas at the new shop because it is
in the garage. I use charcoal at Hopewell which is a luxury to say the least.
Each source has some advantages with corresponding disadvantages .
We must take responsibility for our actions and realize that every decison
that we make concerning the fuels that we burn or the garbage we make has an
impact. Our individual impact may be small but there are billions of us on
this planet.
Does any one out there have plans for a solar powered forge?

Hochewa

---

From: Ralph Snel <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 11:59:50 METDST

> Does any one out there have plans for a solar powered forge?
Now you mention it, i've heard about one! Looong time ago, so details
might be very wrong. I think it's located somewhere in France. A lot of big
flat mirrors reflect the sunlight to a stationary focusing mirror. The flat
mirrors follow the sun. In the focal point the temperature gets hot enough
to melt just about any metal, nice and clean. I'm not sure if it still exists
and what it's used for.

Ralph
[email-masked]

---

From: Michael Spencer <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 Sep 96 13:22:45 EDT

> ... heard about one! Looong time ago,....located somewhere in
> France. A lot of big flat mirrors reflect the sunlight to a stationary
> focusing mirror. The flat mirrors follow the sun. In the focal point
> the temperature gets hot enough to melt just about any metal, nice and
> clean. I'm not sure if it still exists and what it's used for.

I read about this in Time mag and I dropped the subscription in the
early 70s. It was an aluminum smelter. The mirrors focused on a
crucible in a tower. Hope was to eliminate the huge electric power
costs of aluminum production. Reported to work well, never heard
anything more about it. Just the ticket for a smith with $20 meg or so
and a yen for the Cote d'Azure. :-)

- Mike

-- 
Michael Spencer               (902) 543-8375
[email-masked]
URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html
---

---

From: Bill Roberts <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 05 Sep 1996 18:07:37 -0400

[email-masked] wrote:
BIG SNIP
> Does any one out there have plans for a solar powered forge?

I have a knife maker friend that mentioned using a large(3 ft. dia.) 
fresnel lense for the heat source. Does this have any promise? I'm not 
sure if he was joking or not.
Just a thought,
Bill