The Local (the German daily in English) has an interesting profile of an engineer from Dรผsseldorf who proposes to revolutionize exploiting renewable and passive energy by installing giant spherical collectors mounted on brackets to focus heat generated by sunlight so power can be squeezed out of it.
Arguably, these
Raw Lemon masts are more aesthetic and less intrusive and intensive than shingling one's entire roof with delicate and resource-demanding solar-panels or putting arrays of photovoltaic cells out to pasture, whose manufacture require several rare compounds to function and are prone to the caprice of the elements and cloudy days. Two or three of these simple massive marbles, that are nothing more than magnifying lenses, can heat a household and because of the shape of the Raw Lemon, the sun is never at the wrong angle. This pretty ingenious project has been exclusively crowd-funded and there are a surplus of enthusiastic investors.
