HINT: The damage observed by Puig could only be caused by the properties of Stirling engines.
Also, they'll be the key to a major technological breakthrough a few years down the line.
Solar Dreams: a history of solar energy (1878 - 2025)
- Thread starter ScorchedLight
- Start date
-
- Tags
- chile mouchot solar energy
HINT: The damage observed by Puig could only be caused by the properties of Stirling engines.
Also, they'll be the key to a major technological breakthrough a few years down the line.
I smelled that I was losing something crucial here as I'm not a material engineer but an accident that leads to innovation is the best thing that can happen.
Is it some kind of liquified gas boiling off, maybe? One chamber driving compression of the other chamber could lead to a pressure buildup, maybe getting to liquification pressures, but at a temperature much higher than stable at ambient, so when it cracks, the liquified gas boils and (dripping to the floor) moves dust around be doesn't wet it because of the leidenfrost effect.
You're heading in the right direction
The cause is the condensation of air as a result of the Stirling reversing its cycle, thus acting like a heat pump instead of an engine. This was known at the time, but it wasn't considered very useful against conventional refrigeration techniques. However, uses for liquid gases will be developed much earlier than OTL
Huh, entry of women into the workforce starting early, and in the Islamic world to boot, is one hell of a butterfly! Quite curious how this will develop, and what the British authorities in Egypt will think of this.
The butterflies will flap with force on this timeline, as technology diverges and develops in a completely different direction than OTL. And, from those changes, new paths to development will follow.
Some of the changes are occuring beyond the scope of the narrative (for example, in Bolivia the Wallipini sunken greenhouse is becoming a viable - and cheap - option to produce fruits and vegetables on unsuitable conditions... and also hinting at geothermal heating and cooling. These designs will later have a significant impact in North America and the Far East), but they will be mentioned when it is narratively appropriate.
Hopefully, the world will be truly unrecognisable but still plausible by 1930.
How are ideas for energy storage coming?
I just heard of an interesting one. A block of metal, aluminum in this case though I think it's still rare, is heated to melting then a stirling engine runs off it at night.
I just heard of an interesting one. A block of metal, aluminum in this case though I think it's still rare, is heated to melting then a stirling engine runs off it at night.
It's not a relevant problem just yet, as the concept of solar enegy generation is just starting to become viable and is very much experimental and a supplement to existing power sources (... for now).
However, energy storage was quite developed in the 19th Century, with compressed air systems being used to provide motive power during off hours.
In a sense, they have an advantage, as electricity isn't the prevalent force that drives the world. Kinetic and thermal storage are more viable.
For storage hydro dams can be used as well as flywheels both very rudimentary and used till today.
I would caution about getting too enthusiastic about this. While solar power can do a lot, it can't do everything...in particular, steelmaking is a problem, and that was the main reason coal was so important. Coal in steelmaking isn't only about heating the furnaces, but also about providing a source of carbon for the alloying process. Additionally, solar power isn't yet practical for railroad usage, so that will probably remain another important consumer of coal until electrification or dieselization come in.
Very cool! I don’t have any historical or technical knowledge to contribute, I just think it’s a near story. Subscribed! 
Indeed.
While Mouchot's techniques could be applied in metalurgy and smelting, some processes just aren't viable with solar energy. A blast furnace operates continuously for years, and solar power would be at best an auxiliary source of heat for some furnaces.
One of the real major benefit of this kind of solar power is that isolated villages in the undeveloped world can get access to energy and electricity, we see some of the same today with solar panel and mobile phones in Africa, where the decentralized structure of the technology means you don’t need to develop significant infrastructure to use it.
Part 12: Cold Fusion
April 1887
Santiago, Chile
Although the wait was short, it felt like an eternity. Antonio Eguiguren thought that many who sat before the office of the President felt that time was relative, with the possible exception of diplomats from European powers. They must have thought their wait was too long for them.
Antonio Eguiguren did a conscious effort to avoid those thoughts. He was about to talk with President Balmaceda, and his finding could very well make or break the President's efforts to create an indutry in the new conquered territories. He made a mental checklist of the topics he would expose to the President as the Chief Prospector. Possible ore locations, the quality of the vein, expected reserves and needed infrastructure. And, almost as an afterthought, the developments of a crazy frenchman who was melting rocks with nothing but mirrors and the unyielding Atacama sun. Nevertheless, that Mouchot fellow had convinced Isidora Goyenechea herself about the viability of his project, and that woman wasn't known for her naivite or idealism.
It was only a matter of minutes before he met President Balmaceda. Antonio went to the bathroom to groom himself one last time, using the privacy to do one last mental checklist. As he was washing his hands, he quickly took them away from the sink. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, just an unfamiliar one. Warm water, coming straight from the sink. With caution, he felt the stream of water and felt a pleasant warmth that was unfamiliar to him. He took warm baths from time to time, but to see warm water straight from the tap felt weird.
After taking more than what was needed to wash his hands, he went to the President's office. Formalities were exchanged. His nervousness never faded, but coalesced into a cold state that allowed Antonio to speak and function as a normal human being. He produced some samples, maps and graphs. By all means, the Atacama region had a wealth that far surpassed the nitrate deposits that fell prey of greedy Capitalists. To his surprise, he found that the President took him seriously. He asked both about immediate benefits and long-term prospects, he briefly interrupted to discuss policy with his ministers, who were blurred in Antonio's mind. Big, fat men discussing Big Men stuff.
The matter went from the strategic, to the political, to the serious, to the frivolous. One of the ministers took one of the samples, a molten rock that became smooth black.
- Obsidian? - He asked. - Or perhaps Onyx?
- Neither. That vitrified copper ore. - Antonio responded. The color is due to a mix of oxidation while on a molten state, just before the copper could be separated from the scum.
- And how was it melted?
- It was a demonstration set by Augustin Mouchot. He's set up a rather large operation that provides solar-powered heaters to an entire town, and believes that his solar collectors can replace coal as a source of energy. By what I saw in Almonte, he's on the right track.
- Ah. Mouchot. We have installed one of his solar water heaters in this building. It's been a lifechanger. Madame Goyenechea firmly believes in his vision. - Jose Manuel Balmaceda said.
- Your Excelency, it is more than a vision. It is a reality I have witnessed. The Franco-Chilena factory works without burning a single lump of coal. Everywhere where heat is needed, he can extract it directly from the sun. I was invited to their factory, and saw how they could direct concentrated solar energy to heat pipes and bend them. They do it all with mirrors, but I've been assured by Agustin Mouchot that the potential is far from being tapped. I don't know if there's any other factory quite like that in the whole country, not in the ironworks of the railroads or the gunworks of our Army. And they do it all without burning a single lump of coal. - He repeated himself, unknowingly.
- Interesting. So you visited the frenchman on your journey? What did he told you?
- Relevant to my work up north? He told me that he could design a collector that could provide enough heat for all our copper smelting and processing needs. He provided some rough calculations based on known physical properties, and insisted that his design could be easier and cheaper to operate than the current systems - mostly based on coal and some electrical devices which are beyond my comprehension. That glassed rock there? That copper ore was melted by concentrated solar power. On a large enough scale, I believe that his devices would grant us all the heat needed for the refining process. And more beyond that.
- Very well, then. I think you've made a compelling case for contacting this Mouchot fellow and see if he can cooperate on this venture. Is there any other thing we need to know?
Antonio resumed talking about ore purity and probable locations.
Almonte, Tarapacá
Constantino Serrano looked as Mouchot fiddled with the contraption he had made. It wasn't pretty by any means, a mess of wires and ropes and two Stirling engines connected together haphazardly, but the limping veteran trusted his colleague's intuition on this matters. It wasn't purely intuition, of course, but Serrano interpreted it that way.
- Now, if everything goes all right, one of the Stirling engines will donate work to the other and force it to work in reverse in an adiabatic process. - Mouchot explained to him and Puig, who was even more confused by the words coming out of Mouchot's mouth.
- Yes... of course. - Serrano responded, unsure what else to say. - Which means that it will start to get hot on one end, doesn't it?
- Indeed. That's why I instructed the workers to solder those folds around it. I don't want to lose another one of these, so measuring how much time it takes to boil the water above it will give us an idea of the thermal shock the other device suffered. It might prove useful as a heat pump... Monsieur Puig, S'il vous plait?
- Oui, Docteur.
The brakes holding the contraption were disengaged and both Stirling engines began to rotate. One pushed the other, and it took a while before anything happened. The receiving engine showed some small, timid bubbles that rapidly turned furious as one of it ends heated up. Mouchot chronometred the time it took, and wrote down some quick calculations.
- Well, this is unsurprising. I think that some malpractice caused the malfunction. Thermal shock was the culprit behind the destruction of this device. But, since we're here. We might as well see how much heat it can generate.
- Huh, Docter? - One of the workers tried to talk to the frenchman. - Is that... ice? on the other end?
- Ice? It shouldn't be. The heat exchange rate wouldn't allow it to fo- rm. But there it was, a thin, almost imperceptible film of frost forming on the cold end of the Stirling engine.
- That's... getting cold. - Constantino said, not knowing what was happening anymore.
- Indeed. But this shouldn't be possible. Pour more water on the reservoir. And fully dilate the shutter of the collector. I want to see how low it gets.
And low it went. The dry air of the desert didn't provide enough vapor to increase the ice sheet by much, but it didn't matter. The engines began to work at peak capacity. Some sort of vapour started to emanate from the cold end, dropping and dissipating on the ground. Then it started leaking a liquid. Not leaking, dripping. It couldn't be water, Serrano knew that much... so the only possiblity was...
- Liquid air. That's liquid air. - Serrano said. How's that even possible?
- It's... liquid air. We've made liquid air. - Mouchot said. Serrano knew that tone, but had never heard it with such seriousness. - So that engine reached such a low temperature that it became brittle and prone to thermal shock... This opens so many possiblities.
- Can we use it to cool down places? - Puig asked. That seemed to snap Mouchot out of his trance. The frenchman ordered the experiment to end. The Stirling engines slowed down and stopped. The drip stopped and the ice melted. Normalcy returned.
Mouchot, unilaterally, closed the factory earlier. Constantino protested, alleging that it would cost half a day of productivity. The union representative also protested, but Mouchot just said that the day would still be paid, so the workers could take it as a holiday. If that was his reaction, then they had stumbled onto something big. Constantino acquiesced and realized that Mouchot wanted calm to discuss just what they had discovered.
A few hours later, and over a bottle of wine, Mouchot, Serrano and Puig discussed about the events of the morning.
- So... the obvious one. Cooling and refrigeration. - Puig said. I imagine that we could modify this thing to cool things down. Maybe even use it to make this hellhole bearable during the summer.
- Oh, yes. That'll definitely be a priority, because I don't know if I'd survive another summer under this sun. - Mouchot answered. - But there's something even bigger. If we can liquify air, then we could easily distill its components. Nitrogen is non-reactive, which would prove invaluable on chemical and industrial processes. Oxygen, on the other hand is an oxidizer. Today, it's produced from water and electricity, but it's a very inefficient process. I don't know how efficient our process would be, but if we can generate it a reasonable price, and somehow store it, then we could make fires burn much, much brighter than before.
- Which means higher temperatures... which in turn would increase the efficiency of boilers. - Serrano
- Indeed. What we've discovered here, it might as well be revolutionary.
- We are going to have a problem, though. As it is, we are reaching the limits of what we can achieve among the three of us. We should hire qualified technicians and engineers. If half of the things we're discussing can become practical, then the profitability of this company will surpass even those of the nitrate exporters. - Serrano said, knowing well that
- In this country? We won't have much luck. I'm sorry, but I doubt that there are any technicians or engineers of the calibre we would need for this endeavour. We would need to hire professionals from Europe, or maybe the United States. I'll write a letter about this development to Madame Goyenechea
Mouchot's assessment, even if it was true, hurt Serrano on his patriotic pride.
Bletchley, United Kingdom
Morgan had to admit that his brother Damian, whom he always considered an adventurer living in the moment without a care in the world, had stumbled upon something big. The Cotrell Solar Boiler Company was growing at a rapid pace, as knowledge about solar boilers spread throughout the Empire, and even a few abroad, on the Ottoman Empire. He marked on a world map the date in which the first request for a boiler was made, an act without further meaning but which nevertheless filled him with pride. The latest mark was on Australia, where a small boiler that could pump water had been ordered, it wasn't a big sale, but it was still significant.
As he checked his mail, he took special note on a letter from across the pond. He readied to mark a place in the Americas for the first time, but as he read he realized that his sender, one Charles Fritts, wasn't interested on buying one of his devices. Instead, he wanted to share his experiences converting solar energy directly to electrical current. He attached some research notes and formulas that were beyond his understanding... and then, inevitably, asked for funds for his research.
Normally, the skeptical Morgan would have just rejected the request out of hand, but today he was feeling generous and so he scheduled a meeting with a local physicist that would help him understand if the idea had any merit.
Puig was a man with deep sympathies for the Anarchist and Syndicalist causes, and thus his account that it was a worker which first noted the frost forming on the cold end of the Stirling engine might be biased. However, this doesn't change the fact that the discovery of a practical means to liquify air could have easily been missed by Mouchot and his team, as he was almost exclusively dedicated to the generation of heat.
Although uses for liquid air were suggested that very evening, it was Constantino Serrano the man who best understood the commercial implications of this breakthrough. Hoping to replicate the success of the solar water heater, he correctly argued that the most immediate and simpler use of liquid air would be temperature control for domestic and industrial uses. Other, more arcane uses suggested by Mouchot would have to wait until de development of the Dewar flask in 1889.
Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of the early Solar Race was that, even if Mouchot would cause several small revolutions once liquid air storage became practical, the breakthrough that truly made solar a competitive source of energy was discovered by someone else.
Santiago, Chile
Although the wait was short, it felt like an eternity. Antonio Eguiguren thought that many who sat before the office of the President felt that time was relative, with the possible exception of diplomats from European powers. They must have thought their wait was too long for them.
Antonio Eguiguren did a conscious effort to avoid those thoughts. He was about to talk with President Balmaceda, and his finding could very well make or break the President's efforts to create an indutry in the new conquered territories. He made a mental checklist of the topics he would expose to the President as the Chief Prospector. Possible ore locations, the quality of the vein, expected reserves and needed infrastructure. And, almost as an afterthought, the developments of a crazy frenchman who was melting rocks with nothing but mirrors and the unyielding Atacama sun. Nevertheless, that Mouchot fellow had convinced Isidora Goyenechea herself about the viability of his project, and that woman wasn't known for her naivite or idealism.
It was only a matter of minutes before he met President Balmaceda. Antonio went to the bathroom to groom himself one last time, using the privacy to do one last mental checklist. As he was washing his hands, he quickly took them away from the sink. It wasn't an unpleasant sensation, just an unfamiliar one. Warm water, coming straight from the sink. With caution, he felt the stream of water and felt a pleasant warmth that was unfamiliar to him. He took warm baths from time to time, but to see warm water straight from the tap felt weird.
After taking more than what was needed to wash his hands, he went to the President's office. Formalities were exchanged. His nervousness never faded, but coalesced into a cold state that allowed Antonio to speak and function as a normal human being. He produced some samples, maps and graphs. By all means, the Atacama region had a wealth that far surpassed the nitrate deposits that fell prey of greedy Capitalists. To his surprise, he found that the President took him seriously. He asked both about immediate benefits and long-term prospects, he briefly interrupted to discuss policy with his ministers, who were blurred in Antonio's mind. Big, fat men discussing Big Men stuff.
The matter went from the strategic, to the political, to the serious, to the frivolous. One of the ministers took one of the samples, a molten rock that became smooth black.
- Obsidian? - He asked. - Or perhaps Onyx?
- Neither. That vitrified copper ore. - Antonio responded. The color is due to a mix of oxidation while on a molten state, just before the copper could be separated from the scum.
- And how was it melted?
- It was a demonstration set by Augustin Mouchot. He's set up a rather large operation that provides solar-powered heaters to an entire town, and believes that his solar collectors can replace coal as a source of energy. By what I saw in Almonte, he's on the right track.
- Ah. Mouchot. We have installed one of his solar water heaters in this building. It's been a lifechanger. Madame Goyenechea firmly believes in his vision. - Jose Manuel Balmaceda said.
- Your Excelency, it is more than a vision. It is a reality I have witnessed. The Franco-Chilena factory works without burning a single lump of coal. Everywhere where heat is needed, he can extract it directly from the sun. I was invited to their factory, and saw how they could direct concentrated solar energy to heat pipes and bend them. They do it all with mirrors, but I've been assured by Agustin Mouchot that the potential is far from being tapped. I don't know if there's any other factory quite like that in the whole country, not in the ironworks of the railroads or the gunworks of our Army. And they do it all without burning a single lump of coal. - He repeated himself, unknowingly.
- Interesting. So you visited the frenchman on your journey? What did he told you?
- Relevant to my work up north? He told me that he could design a collector that could provide enough heat for all our copper smelting and processing needs. He provided some rough calculations based on known physical properties, and insisted that his design could be easier and cheaper to operate than the current systems - mostly based on coal and some electrical devices which are beyond my comprehension. That glassed rock there? That copper ore was melted by concentrated solar power. On a large enough scale, I believe that his devices would grant us all the heat needed for the refining process. And more beyond that.
- Very well, then. I think you've made a compelling case for contacting this Mouchot fellow and see if he can cooperate on this venture. Is there any other thing we need to know?
Antonio resumed talking about ore purity and probable locations.
Almonte, Tarapacá
Constantino Serrano looked as Mouchot fiddled with the contraption he had made. It wasn't pretty by any means, a mess of wires and ropes and two Stirling engines connected together haphazardly, but the limping veteran trusted his colleague's intuition on this matters. It wasn't purely intuition, of course, but Serrano interpreted it that way.
- Now, if everything goes all right, one of the Stirling engines will donate work to the other and force it to work in reverse in an adiabatic process. - Mouchot explained to him and Puig, who was even more confused by the words coming out of Mouchot's mouth.
- Yes... of course. - Serrano responded, unsure what else to say. - Which means that it will start to get hot on one end, doesn't it?
- Indeed. That's why I instructed the workers to solder those folds around it. I don't want to lose another one of these, so measuring how much time it takes to boil the water above it will give us an idea of the thermal shock the other device suffered. It might prove useful as a heat pump... Monsieur Puig, S'il vous plait?
- Oui, Docteur.
The brakes holding the contraption were disengaged and both Stirling engines began to rotate. One pushed the other, and it took a while before anything happened. The receiving engine showed some small, timid bubbles that rapidly turned furious as one of it ends heated up. Mouchot chronometred the time it took, and wrote down some quick calculations.
- Well, this is unsurprising. I think that some malpractice caused the malfunction. Thermal shock was the culprit behind the destruction of this device. But, since we're here. We might as well see how much heat it can generate.
- Huh, Docter? - One of the workers tried to talk to the frenchman. - Is that... ice? on the other end?
- Ice? It shouldn't be. The heat exchange rate wouldn't allow it to fo- rm. But there it was, a thin, almost imperceptible film of frost forming on the cold end of the Stirling engine.
- That's... getting cold. - Constantino said, not knowing what was happening anymore.
- Indeed. But this shouldn't be possible. Pour more water on the reservoir. And fully dilate the shutter of the collector. I want to see how low it gets.
And low it went. The dry air of the desert didn't provide enough vapor to increase the ice sheet by much, but it didn't matter. The engines began to work at peak capacity. Some sort of vapour started to emanate from the cold end, dropping and dissipating on the ground. Then it started leaking a liquid. Not leaking, dripping. It couldn't be water, Serrano knew that much... so the only possiblity was...
- Liquid air. That's liquid air. - Serrano said. How's that even possible?
- It's... liquid air. We've made liquid air. - Mouchot said. Serrano knew that tone, but had never heard it with such seriousness. - So that engine reached such a low temperature that it became brittle and prone to thermal shock... This opens so many possiblities.
- Can we use it to cool down places? - Puig asked. That seemed to snap Mouchot out of his trance. The frenchman ordered the experiment to end. The Stirling engines slowed down and stopped. The drip stopped and the ice melted. Normalcy returned.
Mouchot, unilaterally, closed the factory earlier. Constantino protested, alleging that it would cost half a day of productivity. The union representative also protested, but Mouchot just said that the day would still be paid, so the workers could take it as a holiday. If that was his reaction, then they had stumbled onto something big. Constantino acquiesced and realized that Mouchot wanted calm to discuss just what they had discovered.
A few hours later, and over a bottle of wine, Mouchot, Serrano and Puig discussed about the events of the morning.
- So... the obvious one. Cooling and refrigeration. - Puig said. I imagine that we could modify this thing to cool things down. Maybe even use it to make this hellhole bearable during the summer.
- Oh, yes. That'll definitely be a priority, because I don't know if I'd survive another summer under this sun. - Mouchot answered. - But there's something even bigger. If we can liquify air, then we could easily distill its components. Nitrogen is non-reactive, which would prove invaluable on chemical and industrial processes. Oxygen, on the other hand is an oxidizer. Today, it's produced from water and electricity, but it's a very inefficient process. I don't know how efficient our process would be, but if we can generate it a reasonable price, and somehow store it, then we could make fires burn much, much brighter than before.
- Which means higher temperatures... which in turn would increase the efficiency of boilers. - Serrano
- Indeed. What we've discovered here, it might as well be revolutionary.
- We are going to have a problem, though. As it is, we are reaching the limits of what we can achieve among the three of us. We should hire qualified technicians and engineers. If half of the things we're discussing can become practical, then the profitability of this company will surpass even those of the nitrate exporters. - Serrano said, knowing well that
- In this country? We won't have much luck. I'm sorry, but I doubt that there are any technicians or engineers of the calibre we would need for this endeavour. We would need to hire professionals from Europe, or maybe the United States. I'll write a letter about this development to Madame Goyenechea
Mouchot's assessment, even if it was true, hurt Serrano on his patriotic pride.
Bletchley, United Kingdom
Morgan had to admit that his brother Damian, whom he always considered an adventurer living in the moment without a care in the world, had stumbled upon something big. The Cotrell Solar Boiler Company was growing at a rapid pace, as knowledge about solar boilers spread throughout the Empire, and even a few abroad, on the Ottoman Empire. He marked on a world map the date in which the first request for a boiler was made, an act without further meaning but which nevertheless filled him with pride. The latest mark was on Australia, where a small boiler that could pump water had been ordered, it wasn't a big sale, but it was still significant.
As he checked his mail, he took special note on a letter from across the pond. He readied to mark a place in the Americas for the first time, but as he read he realized that his sender, one Charles Fritts, wasn't interested on buying one of his devices. Instead, he wanted to share his experiences converting solar energy directly to electrical current. He attached some research notes and formulas that were beyond his understanding... and then, inevitably, asked for funds for his research.
Normally, the skeptical Morgan would have just rejected the request out of hand, but today he was feeling generous and so he scheduled a meeting with a local physicist that would help him understand if the idea had any merit.
Puig was a man with deep sympathies for the Anarchist and Syndicalist causes, and thus his account that it was a worker which first noted the frost forming on the cold end of the Stirling engine might be biased. However, this doesn't change the fact that the discovery of a practical means to liquify air could have easily been missed by Mouchot and his team, as he was almost exclusively dedicated to the generation of heat.
Although uses for liquid air were suggested that very evening, it was Constantino Serrano the man who best understood the commercial implications of this breakthrough. Hoping to replicate the success of the solar water heater, he correctly argued that the most immediate and simpler use of liquid air would be temperature control for domestic and industrial uses. Other, more arcane uses suggested by Mouchot would have to wait until de development of the Dewar flask in 1889.
Perhaps one of the greatest ironies of the early Solar Race was that, even if Mouchot would cause several small revolutions once liquid air storage became practical, the breakthrough that truly made solar a competitive source of energy was discovered by someone else.
Last edited:
Fantastic chapters- seems Solar power is still spreading and new uses are being found.
I actually could believe it was one of the workers who spotted the ice forming as a by product of the 2 engines. Too often such discoveries are just attributed to the 'Big Man' inventor, so its nice its not here. Free Refrigeration from solar alone will be huge, let alone domestic cooling.
As for electricity from solar? That is a HUGE game changer!
I actually could believe it was one of the workers who spotted the ice forming as a by product of the 2 engines. Too often such discoveries are just attributed to the 'Big Man' inventor, so its nice its not here. Free Refrigeration from solar alone will be huge, let alone domestic cooling.
As for electricity from solar? That is a HUGE game changer!
Fritts' work is historical and he is credited woth inventing the first solar cell in 1883, although its efficiency was at a dismal > 1%. Photovoltaics would have to wait 70 years to become practical.
I don't expect his cells to become a practical source of energy, but that doesn't mean it doesn't have uses in this world where practical solar energy is developing much earlier.
The vitrified copper ore- what sort is it? Unless it's native copper, you still need a source of carbon to de-oxidize it.
This is definitely the start of something big. But as the characters acknowledge, it's going to take a lot of highly skilled engineering work before the potential of liquified air can truly be utilized. I hope that in the long run this will prompt the latin american countries to start making efforts at training their own class of skilled engineers.
So, the first discovery of photovoltaics? Going to take a long time to become competitive, but likely will have niche applications in super-remote areas.
I wonder if the engineers looked upon the machine in bafflement as the layer of "ice" got thicker and thicker despite the lack of moisture, not realizing that they were creating solid Carbon Dioxide. Damn that's some real kick. I'm surprised that the stirling engine didn't shatter when it got down to almost -200 celsius. (also, you forgot a period before "some sort of vapor")
This is definitely the start of something big. But as the characters acknowledge, it's going to take a lot of highly skilled engineering work before the potential of liquified air can truly be utilized. I hope that in the long run this will prompt the latin american countries to start making efforts at training their own class of skilled engineers.
So, the first discovery of photovoltaics? Going to take a long time to become competitive, but likely will have niche applications in super-remote areas.
The Stirling engine was only submitted to that temperature for a short while, and thus the damage wasn't enough to completely break it down. Still, not something recommended.
At 8:00 this video shows the phenomena described, although with a setup designed to tolerate those temperatures. The materials needed for practical liquid air production will have developed, and so industrial production of liquid air will have to wait a few years (which is ok, as cold storage will have to be developed too before it can be used).
While I expect technology to advance faster and in a different direction on this TL, I still intend to keep it plausible and attached to reality.