[antonhowes]

Fun tidbit, which I didn’t mention in the piece: Drebbel proposed creating some kind of solar-powered central heating system for London in the 1610s. We don’t have many details, other than the fact he thought it would cost £20,000 and would involve heating some kind of very heat-conductive material on top of a hill nearby. Historians assume it would have then involved heating water to be run in pipes to London’s houses.

[kragen]

That's amazing! I suppose that because Fahrenheit wouldn't invent the mercury thermometer until 01714, energy wouldn't be discovered until Emilie du Chatelet's work in 01749, and the heat equation wouldn't be discovered until 01822, Drebbel might have had a hard time in the 01610s calculating how much sunlight and how much heat transfer medium would be needed. But Drebbel consistently did things that should have been impossible in the 17th century (homeostasis with negative feedback, submarines with oxygen generators, high-explosive weapons, and androids, as well as the atmosphere-powered orrery you profiled here), so maybe he had some way.

You could probably make something like this a lot more efficient with TCES, eliminating the losses from conduction in the pipes between the power plant and the houses, but that's pretty hard to do with copper pipes. Maybe salt-fired ceramic pipes would work for TCES transfer. But even sensible heat transfer with a copper heat exchanger would probably have worked fine.