Spring 2001

ME/IE 8773-8774

 

Solar Energy as a Benign Alternative Prime Energy Source
for Industrial Processes

by

Edward A. Fletcher
Professor Emeritus
Department of Mechanical Engineering
University of Minnesota

Wednesday, February 21, 2001

3:30-4:30 p.m.

Room 108 ME

Broadcast on UNITE Channel A

Coffee and cookies will be available in 152 ME following the seminar

In recent years we seem to have forgotten the lessons we learned after the 1973 OPEC embargo, and history is repeating itself. Moreover, the increased use of fossil fuels has become questionable. Alternative benign prime energy sources are badly needed. Two alternative prime energy sources now evident: nuclear fission and the various manifestations of solar energy. I prefer the solar energy option. In this seminar I tell why. I present several suggestions for the use of solar energy in energy intensive industrial processes. They give promise of increasing our usable fossil fuel reserves, permit us to use fossil fuels more frugally than we now do, and substantially decrease the amount of electrical energy we have to use to effect many industrial processes.

Upon receiving his Ph.D. in inorganic and physical chemistry from Purdue in 1952 Fletcher joined The National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics, which became the nucleus of NASA. While there he pioneered the supersonic combustion studies which led to the scramjet concept, developed several high altitude jet engine ignition techniques which were later applied to high-altitude surveillance aircraft, laid down principles for hypergolic ignition of liquid propellant rocket engines which were used to correct a dangerous ignition problem in the Atlas-Agena launch vehicle, and received a technological achievement award for his role in inventing a method for igniting solid propellant rocket engines in space. He came to Minnesota in 1959. Until 1973 he did fundamental combustion studies. Since then, starting with the imposition of the OPEC embargo, he switched to industrial applications of solar energy. Shortly thereafter he was awarded a patent (assigned to the University) for using sunlight to produce elemental hydrogen and oxygen from water.

Informal Faculty Luncheon: Wednesday, February 21, 2001, 12:00 noon. A table is reserved at McCormick's Restaurant, Radisson Hotel Metrodome. Prof. Fletcher will be able to attend.