JOHN POPOVICH

I know very little about the very little and even less about the very large. A lifetime of study and experience has yielded a pretty good feel for transport phenomena, thermodynamics, scaling laws, and materials and processes.

Born in 1945, I had an early interest in things and imagined myself an inventor since early childhood. I became interested in solar energy in the early 1970s and this led to an interest in heat transfer, geometrical optics, microspheric photovoltaics, and thermophotovoltaics.

My solar experience includes teaching solar energy engineering to engineering students at Northrop Institute of Technology and the design, construction, and operation of a solar laboratory for National Technical Systems in the 1970s. I also designed and manufactured a passive solar water heater (SunWizard)that incorporated a selective surface absorber and a neighboring white region for increased solar energy input.

A pursuit of low cost solar energy resulted in SolaCulture, a fluidynamic solar concentrator, See neweconomytechnology.com

I created an optoelectronics lab and spent 15 yrs. developing a wide range of lighting and display technologies

I owned and operated a machine shop for more than 15 years for my own work. The shop included 4 axis CNC mills, CNC lathes, and a wide range of manual machines.

My interest in micro turbines stemmed from the potential to use them as a topping cycle for natural gas water heaters. I proposed this to Southern California Gas in the 1970s and found no interest and I have spent the bulk of the last 15 years in pursuit of microturbines and their uses.

My design influences include Hero of Alexandria, Cecil Murray, Frei Otto, Rudolf Trostel, Gustave Laval, Pierre Luigi Nervi, Eladio Dieste, Heinrich Hertel, J.E. Gordon, Mariano Fortuny, Lima de Faria, Jean Andreau, Luigi Colani, Michael Troitski, and Robert Mallart, who coined the term “Economy of means.”

Along the way I accrued a technical library of greater than 10,000 volumes, a number of patents, and a litany of failures.