Thanks for the links!

I came across that phoenixnavigation site about 1 year ago, read it, and promptly forgot all about it! Looks like there's some pretty neat stuff going on there.

I have been kicking around the idea of building some kind of solar concentrator using a parabolic trough and that solar reflective film you see advertised on the web. Either a trough, or a large strip-dish type concentrator.

As mentioned elsewhere in this post the Tesla turbine is attractive for cost and ease of manufacture and combined with a homebrew alternator designed for high rpm the plan could have some real benefits.