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concepts · updated 2026-08-10

Bristol Stickney

confidence: high volatility: cold verified: 2026-08-10fresh

BS Mechanical Engineering (U of Maine at Orono). Licensed mechanical contractor NM. Chief Engineer of Coyne Solar Manufacturing (5 years, ~600 batch solar water heaters). Research Associate with Amory Lovins at Rocky Mountain Institute. 17-year NMSEA tenure (Staff Engineer to Associate Director). Co-founded Cedar Mountain Solar (2004) and SolarLogic LLC (2008, CTO). Collaborator on Baer's 2002 heated-vs-unheated-plates experiments and co-author of the 2006 NM NSRC report.

BS in Mechanical Engineering (University of Maine at Orono). Licensed mechanical contractor in New Mexico.

Career

Chief Engineer of Coyne Solar Manufacturing Co. for five years, overseeing production of approximately 600 batch solar water heaters. Research Associate with Amory Lovins at E-source/Rocky Mountain Institute. Served a 17-year tenure at NMSEA in progressively senior roles: Staff Engineer, Director of Research, Associate Director, Treasurer, Vice Chairman of Board — making him one of the longest-serving technical figures in the organization’s history.

Co-founded Cedar Mountain Solar (2004) with Boaz Soifer. Co-founded SolarLogic LLC (2008) with Boaz Soifer and Fred Milder (PhD Nuclear Physics); serves as CTO. Holds a patent on the SETH System (DC hydronic heating control, up to 80% electrical demand reduction). Won the 2008 Showcase Award for Solar Heating Design (Radiant Panel Association). Author of 100+ published articles on solar solutions. Incorporates NSRC into virtually every flat-plate solar system he designs; SolarLogic controls include built-in NSRC cooling.

Baer experiments and NSRC report

Collaborator on two of the archive’s key experimental sources. First: the October 2002 heated-vs-unheated-plates experiments with Steve Baer, using matched 12″×12″ aluminum plates (one heated, one not) to measure night-sky radiative heat loss — the work that empirically confirmed night radiation can exceed 9.5 W/ft², direct support for the Cool Cell premise. See Heated vs unheated plates for the experiment itself.

Second: co-author, with Mark Chalom Architect and Kate Snider, of the 2006 New Mexico state-funded night-sky radiant cooling (NSRC) report for Governor Richardson’s Water Innovation Fund (completed February 28, 2006), where he is credited as “Bristol Stickney, Solar Consulting — Cedar Mountain Solar” — see Night sky radiant cooling potentials in New Mexico. Stickney also built the report’s companion Excel cooling calculator (February 2006), which models NSRC energy and water savings for a user-defined house across all 11 New Mexico climate zones (default: 1,800 sq ft home, 400 sq ft radiator, night-sky U value 1.7 BTU/hr·ft²·°F), projecting cooling-energy savings from 100% at Red River down to 58% at Carlsbad versus air conditioning. A separate note in the archive references a “Utah project” where Stickney and Mark Chalom “have repeated many of our experiments on night cooling,” suggesting an ongoing working relationship with Baer beyond the two documented projects.

See also