Molten Salt-Based Solar Power Plant 478
rcastro0 writes "Hamilton Sundstrand, a division of United Technologies, announced today that it will start to commercialize a new type of solar power plant. A new company called SolarReserve will be created to provide heat-resistant pumps and other equipment, as well as the expertise in handling and storing salt that has been heated to more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. According to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla 'Three percent of the land area of Morocco could support all of the electricity for Western Europe.' Molten Salt storage is already used in Nevada's Solar One power plant. Is this the post-hydrocarbon world finally knocking?"
sun renewable? (Score:2, Funny)
So Gene Wolfe was right?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_the_new_sun/ [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Urth_of_the_New_Sun/ [wikipedia.org]
Re:sun renewable? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:sun renewable? (Score:5, Insightful)
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No she was not right. A renewable resource is one that we humans can currently cause to be renewed through our own actions. For example when we harvest plants we can plant new ones in their place. Wind, hydro, and solar power all come from the sun.
And just where do you think the energy for the plant to grow (form organic molecules for structure and energy storage) comes from?
There is no *real* renewable energy, laws of ethropy make that an impossible thing. A perpetual motion machine is impossible (as far as we know). That's why "renewable energy" means something else, basically an energy source that is not permanently depleted by us humans using it.
It's a bit of a definition issue really. For example there is some controversy wether peat should be
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The energy for the plants comes from light of course, but it doesn't have to come from the sun. Any light source emitting the appropriate wavelength(s) will do. Resource have other uses then energy such as lumber, paper, thread, drugs, etc. If we ever figure out controlled sustainable fusion we'll no longer be dependent on the sun as our primary energy source. I also didn't say that renewable resources were infinite, I merely said that we currently have the ability to replace those that we use which is something we can do for coal and oil but not for the sun.
I'm not sure I understand what you are trying to say...
Synthesized oil or coal are not energy sources, they are ways to store energy. Energy for the synthetication must come from some actual energy source. Fossil oil and coal are energy sources for humans, but they are non-renewable because more of them will not appear from anywhere (not in human time-scales anyway), and they get less and less as we use them. And even though the energy for the fossil fuels came from the Sun, we are harvesting it from th
Correcting misunderstandings in parent post (Score:3, Informative)
The difference in consumer voltage between Europe, Japan and the US is a non-issue - we transport electricity at a much higher voltage, and then transform it down close to the point of use. The same isn't quite tr
Pretty light on detail (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pretty light on detail (Score:5, Informative)
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Specific heat capacity and the ability to move the energy store are more important than the rate at which the material conducts thermal energy.
Re:Pretty light on detail (Score:5, Informative)
Heat engines also require a big temperature gradient to do work at high efficiency, which makes using steam directly a harder proposal. Molten salt is well understood in used as a coolant in some types of nuclear reactors, and it works well for this purpose, and that's why it's used.
Re:Pretty light on detail (Score:4, Informative)
The molten salt is there because it's pumpable, so that it can quickly gather up a bunch of energy from the reflectors, and just as quickly dump it through conduction when the heat is used to make steam. Water is king, in terms of storing heat, unfortunately it turns to gas at a relatively low temperature.
However in cases like the Nevada Solar One power plant, it's oil that is circulated through tubes and is heated. Then the heated oil goes through a heat exchanger where the heat is transfered to water which spins the turbines. Only if the heat can't be used right away will the heat be transfered to the salt, which stores the heat for later use.
FalconRe:Pretty light on detail (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Pretty light on detail (Score:4, Interesting)
Since there would also be lost efficiency going the other way (hydrogen > electricity), it probably isn't a very good sole storage solution, but it would seem to be a good solution to burn hydrogen in place of the NG. That would obviously result in further reduced efficiency, but would remove any Co2 from the equation. I'm not a chemist, physicist, or really any other -ist, but it seems like there is at least some potential there.
Re:Pretty light on detail (Score:5, Informative)
Think about it -- these plants have to store heat; heat is proportional to mass, which scales as cube of diameter. Meanwhile, they lose heat at a rate that is proportional to surface area, which scales as the square of diameter. You need only the most basic math skills to see that this results in VASTLY better efficiency at larger sizes.
But, no, I'm sure you're much smarter than... you know... the actual engineers and physicists who designed this plant. Or the people who built any of the nuclear plants that pump liquid salt to transfer heat. Those silly people, they've probably never even HEARD of using oil to store heat!
Solar panels and cells are expensive to produce, and the process uses tremendous amounts of energy. After all, it requires producing perfectly pure silicon, not a trivial task. And a huge amount of waste is produced in the process.
That's not to dismiss solar cells -- but we need to explore every avenue. And at the large scales where power plants become commercially viable, heat engines rule. Coal and gas-fired reactors, as well as nuclear plants, they're all just big heat engines. Heat engines have over two centuries of engineering research and development behind them. And Semiconductors just can't be produced in large enough quantities cheaply enough (yet).
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It seems like that would be true, doesn't it. Luckily, engineers use actual science to design stuff rather than just gut feelings. Solar to concentrated heat to a steam engine (or similar) is actually still a bit more efficient and cheaper than photovoltaics, but the real killer bit here is overnight storage and generati
Not that new... (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't see why you'd lose much efficiency. You'd chose a salt that was molten over the operating range, and no matter what, you cannot exceed the temperature limitations of the other materials you've built the thing from, so that's your design temp. Because of the T(t) smoothing effects, you'd be able to run the generator at maximum efficiency for most of the time. Thus, you can size your machinery to the average capacity rather than the peak available solar input. Not spooling the generator up and down as the sun waxes and wanes is great for efficiency.
For instance, you might pick a salt that has a liquid-solid transition just below your desired T_hot, ensuring even temperature until all the salt solidifies. This has the added benefit that, depending on the expansion characteristics of the salt in question, you have a number of ways to evaluate the remaining generating capacity.
With good insulation, and a fixed installation can be made arbitrarily well insulated, you would lose a lot less energy than storage in batteries, and it scales very well: the larger the installation, the thinner the needed insulation is relative to the total volume.
The main loss would be radiation from the absorption patch. Presumably you'd mitigate this by having some kind of louver or hatch that you could close to insulate that during the night and overcast days. You could also take advantage of the much lower-than-the-sun temperatures, and use a covering that is transparent to visible light, but reflective to lower frequency light. Although there would still be a fair bit of radiation in the visible at reasonably efficient temperatures.
Nuclear's the future. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I would love to believe some form of solar power would meet the world's needs, it simply isn't feasible with current technology.
We'll probably have wormholes, sexbots and universal prosperity before solar can meet the demand.
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Nuclear is not the future.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nuclear is not the future.. (Score:5, Insightful)
It requires an absolutely tiny amount of uranium to run a nuclear plant, compared to the 10,000 tons/day that a 1GW coal plant uses. Uranium is rare, but you don't actually need that much *of* it. 95% of the fuel used in fission plants can be reprocessed. Coal producers are chopping off the tops of entire *mountains* in Appalachia;
"Disposal" isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be; reprocessing reduces the amount of waste produced tremendously, and storing a little waste for a time is a whole lot better than *not* storing it and dumping it into the atmosphere, as we're doing with coal.
There are other forms of power generation than nuclear, but at the moment it is the only proven, scalable, clean, and economical alternative to fossil fuels for power generation. Perhaps solar-thermal (as in this article) or geothermal or tidal power or some sort of wind power can be used to carry a lot of the load, but nuclear power is available now, and the only thing lacking is the political will to implement it.
France had that political will, and now they have the cheapest power and the cleanest air in Europe.
Re:Nuclear is not the future.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear is not the future.. (Score:4, Interesting)
"Disposal" isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be; reprocessing reduces the amount of waste produced tremendously, and storing a little waste for a time is a whole lot better than *not* storing it and dumping it into the atmosphere, as we're doing with coal.
The French, who have come the farthest in reprocessing, are finding out it's not as simple to reprocess as many would have you believe. IEEE's magazine "Spectrum" has a good article on this: "Nuclear Wasteland" [ieee.org]. However another /.er brought up the Candu [wikipedia.org] reactor in Canada a few weeks ago. I don't know much about it so I can't say whether there are any problems with the design or waste, or whether its economically feasible. However nuclear power isn't really needed, not in the US. The Rocky Mountains [nrel.gov] alone contain enough potential wind power to supply the 48 continuous states with electricity. Add OR, CA, AZ, NM, and Texas along with some offshore sites from Cape Cod to the Mid Atlantic and much more can be generated by wind. Also many megawatts of potential power goes up smoke stacks daily as Waste Heat [enn.com]. Combining wind, solar power, cogeneration or waste heat recovery [csiro.au] and conservation negates the need for nuclear power. The alternative power sources, both listed above and others, have a distinct advantage over nuclear power, while it can take years and years for a nuclear power plant to be constructed and brought online, these others can be added immediately. Wind generators and solar PVs can be made from raw material and brought online in months, and can be sited closer to many of the placed where the energy is needed. Besides PVs on roofs a farmer in the Adirondack Mountains [adirondackwind.com] in New York can provide electricity to NYC. The farmer would then have a second source of income.
FalconRe: (Score:3, Informative)
That article doesn't support what you claim.
Re:Nuclear is not the future.. (Score:5, Informative)
Um, no. You only need to do that if you're planning on building bombs. (And anyway, gas centrifuges don't heat the uranium to a gas but chemically convert it to uranium hexafluoride before centrifuging.)
There are plenty of reactor designs that run on unenriched uranium, including most of the nuclear power plants in Canada (CANDU) and places to where Canada has sold reactors.
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Oh, and actually it's the lighter isotope (235 vs 238) that's the one of interest.
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Re:Nuclear is not the future.. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is going to take years and it's a matter of people seeing a lot of solar hot water collecters on rooftops before governments decide it is a safe bet to go for large solar power projects - I think industry on it's own will hit exactly the same problem the nuclear power advocates have. For really big thermal plants they want government money because they can't get commerical finance. Electricity is heavily regulated in most places anyway so it usually takes government involvment to just get a foot in the door. This sometimes involves convincing relatively old people who did not have the benefit of finishing high school of the merits of a project - hence the delay until solar thermal (eg. hot water) comes into the personal experience of the people regulating things.
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I know that YOU probably enjoy acid rain, mercury poisoning, and the pulmonary disorders that are inextricably linked to the emissions from coal plants, but I don't. Meanwhile, nuclear plants produce well-contained waste that can be reprocessed, and use tiny amoun
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source [infoworld.com]
The futu
Yes, Solar is great... (Score:3, Insightful)
Nuclear is ideal for providing base-load power (30-40% of peak capacity), suplemented by Solar, Wind and Tidal power.
Re:Yes, Solar is great... (Score:4, Insightful)
Fixed that for ya, Mr AC.
Learn about what you advocate (Score:3, Insightful)
There are some promising possibilities (pebble bed is at an advanced stage now, and accelerated thorium shows potential) but TRY PAYING ATTENTION - Iran and North Korea's efforts have been headline news for some time and should highlight that what we have today is a dual use compromise that could be better. If the focus was primarily on electricity generation like some of
Re:Nuclear's the future. (Score:5, Informative)
Much of the argument against solar is one of economics, but a company called Nanosolar has recently produced solar panels making energy more cheaply than coal. [grist.org] "Current Technology" is a moving target.
post hydrocarbon already here (Score:5, Insightful)
It was here 50 years ago with nuclear power. Thankfully, it's finally getting attention again.
Re:post hydrocarbon already here (Score:5, Insightful)
Essentially, proponents of solar power usually like to fantasize about theoretical advances in solar technology, while simultaneously refusing to recognise advances in nuclear technology. As an example, electric cars are usually touted as being CO2 neutral "if the electricity comes from renewables". It is outright obvious that this remains true with nuclear as well, but that is scary and hence rarely mentioned. Similarily advances in electric storage is usually touted as a means of allowing solar to be used for baseload, but rarely is it pointed out that the same tech coudl allow nuclear to deliver peak-energy at increased efficiency by running the plant at its maximum output even when demand is low.
A few notes and questions (Score:5, Insightful)
2. As you know, nuclear proponents continually ignore the major immediate problem with nuclear power -- waste storage. Nobody wants more glass-encased nuclear waste in their neighborhood, and presently nobody wants some other neighborhood's nuclear waste being transported through their neighborhood. The nuclear industry has got to find technical and political solutions to these problems before society will embrace nuclear as a green solution. I'm not arguing that burning coal or oil is safer or cleaner than nuclear, just that any change to a status quo requires more than a slight or obscured imbalance, which is how the public currently perceives the status quo.
3. What is Hubbart's Peak for uranium? I have no idea, but it surely must have one.
4. Which nations have substantial amounts of useful uranium? What would the balance of power be if those nations became the new Saudi Arabia of energy?
5. Solar off-peak is simply not a problem, not for a long time. Peak demand is highly correlated with sunshine in most of the world -- solar could serve quite effectively as the peaking plant, relying on other types of generation for base load. Electric storage is just not a major issue for solar -- it might become one for wind but it wouldn't be that hard to operate other green energy plants in a negative correlation to wind, ie burn woodchips when the wind isn't blowing, but not when the wind is blowing.
6. That said, plug in cars might change that formulation substantially, since most people would plug in their cars at night thereby adding demand off-peak [and off-sun]. If/when that happens, much of (5) becomes moot and there'd be some shifting of nighttime use [industrial, it's cheaper] to daytime and there'd be encouragement for folks to charge during the day [plug in jacks at car parks] to help keep demand during the day higher, when production due to solar is higher.
7. Ultimately, this doesn't matter. Solar production in the US is well less than 1%. Even at 10% there won't be a necessary substantial change in infrastructures or demand shaping. So, until then, more of every kind of renewable electricity generation is better, and none of it will create challenges. And, of course, nuclear may or may not be greenish, but it is not renewable.
Re:A few notes and questions (Score:5, Insightful)
4. Ignoring seawater? Australia by far, at 24% of known reserves. Other significant sources include Kazakhstan, Canada, South Africa, Namibia, Brazil, Russia, the US, and Uzbekistan.
Re:A few notes and questions (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:A few notes and questions (Score:5, Informative)
2. It'd be mighty expensive but you could just mix it back with the non-uranium rock you dug out and put it back where you found it... A lot of that waste also isn't waste, it's fissionable material that politically isn't used (because doing so gives you plutonium easily used in weapons).
3. In 20 years we'd run out if we just used uranium in nuke plants for all our electricity. Again allow breeding to plutonium and it turns into 2000 years...
4. The top 5 known recoverable uranium holders are: Australia, Khazakhstan, Canada, USA, South Africa - they make up about 2/3rds of the total. From a Western world perspective, that's a much nicer set then the oil top 5: Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait...
Re:A few notes and questions (Score:5, Insightful)
And to further elaborate on this: There is this concept called Energy Returned on Energy Invested [wikipedia.org]. (And even more refined indicators).
I have heard this flawed argument against nuclear power so often that it is not really funny anymore.
Re:A few notes and questions (Score:5, Insightful)
I would encourage you to read up on nuclear power - while a lot of what you are saying is true, it really doesn't capture the reality of the situation.
1. No, nuclear, by itself, is not carbon neutral. However, neither is any other alternative energy. However, when you have the extra electrical power, you can construct "factories" that will scrub the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Now, we might not have the political will to carry it out, but nuclear alone is still way better than what we have now.
2. Fast breeder reactors can run on our current nuclear waste and the waste from those reactors doesn't last nearly as long. So we get to reduce the amount of waste and what's left doesn't last as long. The reason we don't use them is that reprocessing can create weapons-grade plutonium. Again, this is a political issue instead of a technological one.
3. With today's "wasteful" reactors using Uranium-235 it is estimated between 80 and 300 years. If we use breeder reactors so we can use U-238 and Thorium, it can be billions of years at current energy levels.
4. If necessary, fuel can be extracted from sea water making it a moot point.
5. There is also a peak in the evening when everyone turns on lights and TVs. Also, winter means a lot less sunlight in many populated areas so more demand for lighting and heating.
6. Moving power around might help, but there are just too many hours when power is needed and solar isn't available. Also, cloudy days affect production and can't be planned around. Limiting solar farms to areas with minimal cloud cover means increased losses from transport.
7. Nuclear doesn't have to be renewable if we have a few billion years, (or even a few million), years available. If we can assume a technology level that can protect us from extinction due to an asteroid or comet in that time period, we can assume a technology level that can mine the moon, mars or asteroids for more nuclear material.
While nuclear has its problems, they are really political instead of technological. I really hope we get past our fears of nuclear power so we have a chance of keeping our planet habitable for humans.
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Huh? Fast charge li-ion batteries will be out in the next few years -- several companies (including big players like Toshiba) have already announced them. We're talking 5-10 minutes for a full charge. As for range, didn't you see the Stanford study headed by Yi Cui that got 10x the lithium ion density in the anode with silicon nanowires? The team estimates it'll take about 5 years to commercialize that wi
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Wow, there are still people out there asking this question? It's really, really simple. There are three ways to charge.
1) Slow charge overnight. Anyone can do this without any specialized hardware.
2) Fast charge at gas station. Truck stops already have a lot of power going to them, as do many gas stations, and few would hestitate to upgrade their wiring if it adds another revenue stream.
3) Fast charge anywhere using a fast charg
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Molten salt, on the other hand, if chosen well, will not expand as it heats/cools and can flow slowly, reducing the engineering hassle for a reactor
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Of course, the same people forget to mention that a breeder cycle with reprocessing will produce less waste that needs to be stored.
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Back in 1960 my grandfather patented [google.com] a fuel creation process for molten salt reactors while working at ORNL. These days my uncle is carrying the torch [blogspot.com] for green nuclear power, and fighting the good fight to get people to accept it as a viable power alternative. It's an uphill battle. Folks on the left are terrified of nukes. Folks on the right are in bed with the oil and coal industries. Thankfully the technol
Waste salt (Score:5, Funny)
Electricity for the masses. (Score:2)
Is this be the post-hydrocarbon world finally knocking?"
Only available in locations where ebonics be the #1 language suckah!
On a more serious note, 3% of Moroccos land mass could provide power for ALL of Western Europe? Can I ask what possible reason there could be beyond corruption and greed for this NOT to be used? Somehow I think that this kind of technology, no matter the initial cost, would be an absolute boon and can see no reason why it shouldn't be adopted.
Pollution form fossil fuels will be significantly reduced. We can finally move, at least o
Re:Electricity for the masses. (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, according to the article it is being used and will be used more in the future. The issue is that it takes time, money and a lot of land (3% of Morocco [cia.gov] may seem small (446,300 km^2 *
It may take Hamilton Sundstrand and others quite a few years to ramp up production to the point where they can consider converting even 100 km^2 of land over to solar energy production.
Re:Electricity for the masses. (Score:4, Insightful)
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I am be (Score:4, Funny)
Slashdot editors are be the worst ever...
SciAm article (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan [sciam.com]
Unfortunately, it will take massive investments to make this stuff really viable. Fortunately, some European governments are stepping up with real money. Unfortunately, America hasn't for about a decade.
And yet (Score:2)
vinod is late to the game (Score:5, Interesting)
I know this is somewhat OT (Score:5, Funny)
But the US Navy refused to build any sodium-cooled submarine reactors. Finally a Congressional committee hauled Admiral Rickover in to a hearing to testify as to why he wasn't making better use of taxpayer's money.
To which he replied "This is what happens when sodium gets wet," and he threw a chunk of sodium into some water.
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There WAS a liquid sodium reactor in the US. The seals in the cooling system seals started to fail leading to severe consequences. See Wikipeida [wikipedia.org].
Several liquid metal cooled reactors, actually (Score:3, Informative)
Re:I know this is somewhat OT (Score:4, Informative)
Care to guess what happens when 300 C warm and radioactive water goes from 15 mega pascal to neutral pressure within a fraction of a second after a coolant pipe bursts? No matter if it is sodium or water primary coolant leaking is a Bad Thing (tm) , and sodium has the advantage that you don't have to keep it under pressure, thus reducing the chance of a leak greatly.
In addition sodium is practically non-corrosive to steal, while boric-acid spiked water at 300 C is quite agressive. Sodium also has a much better heat conductivity than water, so the reactor won't melt down if the primary cooling pumps fail ( natural convection of the coolant is enough to cool the spent fuel once the chain reaction has stopped, as it will do due to thermal expansion of the fuel rods ).
Having said this, my favourite candidate for coolant is molten-lead. Like sodium you don't have to pressurise it, it doesn't react with water or air, it won't boil even if you overheat teh ractor so much that the steel melts, and it is an excellent radiation shield against gamma-radiation. Main issue is corrosion, but 20+ years of research has produced alloys that are very stable in molten lead, so you could expect comercial plants using it within a deacde or two.
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Re:I know this is somewhat OT (Score:5, Informative)
Anyone in-the-know care to comment? (Score:2)
Or are we going to just ge
Danger Will Robinson! (Score:2)
This sounds suspiciously close to YoYoDyne. You know, the ones who diverted funds from the vital U.S. Truncheon Bomber program into a private project back in the '80's.
We need to send a crack Congressional investigator to look into this immediately!
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I know, I know... why ruin jokes with facts! Why, indeed - I'm an ass. That's why!
Article reads like a business deal. (Score:5, Informative)
Still limited by Carnot efficiency (Score:4, Informative)
--
Educational microcontroller kits for the digital generation. [nerdkits.com]
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Re:Still limited by Carnot efficiency (Score:5, Informative)
As for the necessity of high efficiency, it's not neccessary. Even if just a small fraction of the world's urban area was paved with inefficient solar cells, it'd still power the world. I don't care to repeat this calculation yet again (I do it about once a month it seems), but look up China's total urban area (just China's) and do the math with 10% efficient cells (less than NanoSolar's) at, say, 20% coverage and an average 100W/m^2, then compare that to the entire world's electricity demand.
As for what potential efficiency we're capable of, it's actually looking up. But not for CIGS -- for more conventional semiconductor cells, which aren't likely to be cheap enough to panel the world. We're up to a staggering 42.8% now (Honsberg and Barnett) -- and the record keeps growing at a rather surprising clip. And there's more potential for that number to keep growing up to 60-70% or so. There are three technologies pushing this -- the ability to get multiple electrons out of a single photon, the use of integrated beam splitters so that different parts of the cell can be optmized to specific parts of the solar spectrum, and the use of phosphor coatings that can be excited to release photons in a desired energy range. These technologies may not end up running our grid, but they'll be running our satellites, our malibu lights, our self-illuminated highway signs, and so forth.
Back to the initial topic: Just to drive home the point as to how much photovoltaic prices have been dropping, let's put in some historical price points (in non-inflation-adjusted dollars):
1956: Bell solar cell: $300/W .
Early 1970s: Bergman's improvements lowers the price from then $100/W to $20/W
Specifically [unu.edu] (in 1994 dollars):
1976: ~$51
1977: ~$38
1978: ~$27
1979: ~$21
1980: ~$18
1981: ~$15
1982: ~$14
1983: ~$11
1984: ~$11
1985: ~$10
1986: ~$9
1987: ~$8
1988: ~$8
1989: ~$8
1990: ~$8
1991: ~$7
1992: ~$7
1993: ~$6
1994: ~$6
In non-inflation-adjusted dollars, solar prices were at a minimum in the early '00s (~4$/W, if I recall correctly), and rose up until this summer due to supply shortages, when they started to go down again. And with the CIGS companies, the prices can be expected to go down a lot over the next several years. Anyways, I really don't see how anyone can look at the numbers and act like solar hasn't been advancing by leaps and bounds since it was first turned from a laboratory curiosity into a commercial product in the '50s.
Might be better with smart power... (Score:5, Interesting)
The concept of storing the energy as thermal is fine, but reducing the amount of energy swaps is going to be the more efficient way to use the power. The efficiency that they can store energy and re-convert it is going to determine how low a cheap power block can sell for.
Anyway, just a crazy rant.. enjoy,
Storm
Current elec usage, maybe not elec cars (Score:2)
Another twist (Score:2)
No, (Score:2)
What it may be is a good start at ending the use of hydrocarbons for electrical power generation. Throw in some Wind, nuclear, some photovoltaics, some hydro, and maybe some biomass and you could reduce our use of coal, oil, and natural gas for power generation a lot.
This is one of the first good energy storage systems I have heard about. Yes it could really help with making solar thermal power a lot more practical.
For transportation I think we w
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Molten salt? (Score:2)
I thought it was sodium heated to a liquid state. Not "Molten Salt".
Do the math, folks (Score:2, Troll)
Let's do the math, folks.
Presuming you want to melt salt, you probably need a whole lot of mirrors. Compute the cost of a square meter of mirror, one that will last for twenty years. Now add the cost of a mirror support, one that will keep it aimed at the collector. The sun moves, so you'll need a aiming device. Estimate the cost of an aiming device that can last for say twenty years and survive typical weather conditions over twenty years. Don't forget wind gusts!
I suspect you'
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The real problem is economics, however. Not necessarily in the way you mean because this is actually relatively robust and proven tech, but economics none-the-less.
People aren't going to get behind it because it would involve a lot of new taxes. Industry isn't going to get behind it because fossil fuels are still cheap(er than alternatives), and the infrastructure around them is well established and proven. The government isn't going to get behind it
You don't mean math, you mean feasability (Score:2)
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Considering the costs of construction, fuel, operation, and everything else associated with the production, current operating solar plants produce energy at just three to four times the cost of fossil fuel plants, and this price is steadily coming down.
Your suspicion of a factor of thirty is wrong. By a factor of ten.
Colonial Thinking Not Dead (Score:2)
'Three percent of the land area of Morocco could support all of the electricity for Western Europe.'
1. Find a resource that'll support western Europe that's outside of western Europe.
2. Do they have a flag? No? Then they can't have a country.
3. Profit.
The only difference is that this time, we British will fight to the death to defend anyone who can also help make our chips* a little saltier.
*Note: No, "Chips" are not "Fries" for Americans. What Americans call "Chips", the English call "Crisps", certainly. However, what the English call "Chips", Americans call "What the hell is that greasy thing? It's goi
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Even worse with respect to foreign dependence (Score:2)
Great from an environmental perspective, unless you are a Moroccan. However it sounds even worse with respect to foreign dependence on energy. At least there are multiple countries/regions to buy oil from. If you out source your solar farm you are in a crisis as fast as someone can throw a switch.
How about each EU member commits 1% of its own territory (roofs count), to the EU power grid. The EU has 10
Very few technical details (Score:2)
Still our transportation sector still relies too heavily on imported oil and this technology too would not do much to alleviate it, by itsel
Knock, knock, knocking... (Score:2)
I think it already was a matter of will, not technical ability.
Sheesh (Score:2)
I can has bad grammar??
Time to re-think the cost justification model (Score:2, Insightful)
There are two critical issues that such cost comparisons ignore:
1) They never account for the long-term costs of pumping more carbon dioxide (plus various pollutants) into t
Nothing new here. See Solar Two Mojave (Score:4, Informative)
---------
Solar two was a flat mirror array.
Search google image search with
"solar two" Mojave
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=yermo,+ca&ie=UTF8&ll=34.871919,-116.83416&spn=0.005915,0.010042&t=h&z=17&om=1 [google.com]
Take the link above and zoom out, just below and to the right is a Parabolic glass mirrors plant
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Two [wikipedia.org]
http://www.powerfromthesun.net/Chapter10/Chapter10new.htm [powerfromthesun.net]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar_Two_2003.jpg [wikipedia.org]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Solar_Two_Heliostat.jpg [wikipedia.org]
http://theothersolar.com/?m=200702 [theothersolar.com]
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1101-10.htm [commondreams.org]
http://www.global-greenhouse-warming.com/solar-central-power-towers.html [global-gre...arming.com]
http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu/edu/dees/U4735/projections/pitman/solar.elec.jpg [columbia.edu]
http://fixedreference.org/2006-Wikipedia-CD-Selection/wp/s/Solar_power.htm [fixedreference.org]
(search for "Solar two")
http://www.reia-nm.org/HTML_Docs/Solar_Thermal_Electrical.html [reia-nm.org]
http://greatgreengadgets.com/gadgets/category/solar/ [greatgreengadgets.com]
http://www.answers.com/topic/solar-thermal-energy [answers.com]
http://blogs.business2.com/greenwombat/2006/week44/index.html [business2.com]
Excellent page on many technologies - Sorry it's in Spanish.
http://g3nergy.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html [blogspot.com]
Search for "Australia to Build 154 MW Solar Energy Plant"
This one is identical in design to the one in the Mojave Dessert here.
http://ludb.clui.org/ex/i/CA4965/ [clui.org] Abandoned Solar Power Plant
Steam Turbine - Sterling engine.. (Score:2)
I like the idea of sterling engines and wonder if they could be used in conjunction with a steam turbine. Th
O&M Expense (Score:3, Informative)
sPh
and without subsidies! (Score:3, Insightful)
If this is project is feasible and is what can be achieved without subsidies I wonder what solar energy projects (and indeed other alternative energy projects) can be created with funding.
salt - water heat exchanger: tricky (Score:5, Informative)
Anything has its chemical activity rise exponentially with temperature (the Arrhenius equation) so as things get hotter, they get more chemically aggressive. Molten glass will dissolve bricks and mortar. Molten sodium and chlorine ions are even nastier -- a sodium ion is a very small object [chemguide.co.uk], only a little larger than hydrogen -- and can diffuse into metals, weakening them and creating leaks.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
"I've discovered perpetual motion^H^H^H^H^H free renewable energy, send me money".
Come on. Use sunlight to melt salt to heat water? Why don't you just use sunlight to heat the water directly. Every step you add just increases your heat loss and decreases your efficiency, because no single step will ever be 100% efficient. There's nothing magical about salt, molten or not. And you can't beat thermodynamics. Ever.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
It's not a bad idea if they have a
Great, for places with lots of sunshine (Score:3, Interesting)
This kind of thing will work great for Las Vegas, and a number of Moroccan arrays would be great for Western Europe with submarine cables across the Mediterranean. Hell, there's lots of great possible sites for this kind of thing in Australia too - even more, if we look at things like using the peak to do things like pump salt water up hill, or store pressurised air, where a couple of days of cloud cover and peak demand won't result in solidification of your thermal reservoir.
But what about Galena, Alaska? With places like that, the options are probably need to either continue shipping in hydrocarbons (either fossil or renewable)or ship in a micro nuclear plant.
I know this is going to sound like some bizarro socialist mish-mash, but what just might be needed is a pricing structure for energy that's in part based on actual costs, in part based on environmental impact, and in part based on the practicalities involved in providing power in a particular location. Under such a scheme, Las Vegas might pay an absolute fortune for electricity generated from natural gas fuelled turbines (a.k.a. ex-airliner jet engines) but very little for solar - enough to make solar the far more attractive option, but allow the gas turbines to be kept available for peak demand (e.g. aircon load on the hottest days, because a couple of arrays are down for maintenance). Galena, however, would probably pay cost of production + shipping + reasonable profit margins for the biodiesel used to fuel its generators, plus maybe a very small surcharge for any mineral diesel purchased and cycled through as reserve stocks (due to biodiesel's shorter storage life). What this would involve is some proper resource planning, above and beyond just what's going to provide the biggest return to investors over the next three to five, and that's why I don't hold much hope for it happening. If we're smart as a species, though, we'll look carefully at how we can reduce our dependance on fossil fuels while still holding them in reserve for emergency power uses or using them for specialised purposes - feedstocks for manufacturing, for example, rather than as a general source of power.
Photos what you've all been looking for. (Score:3, Funny)
Did anyone else groan intensely last year when 'worlds largest squid has been caught!' articles came up with no pictures?
"Meteor smashes into datacentre"
"Worlds largest seal clubs man in Alaska"
"100ft tall hot woman with massive breasts seen naked crossing major highway"
"Worlds coolest event happens! No pictures here!"
Anyhow to get the rant over with,.........
http://ucdcms.ucdavis.edu/solar2/photos/ [ucdavis.edu]
That site is an existing site with one of these fascinating reactors, I found the site some time last year (and had a hell of a time finding the damn link in my history too) check it out purely for the cool factor, good stuff.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
"Arrr, I think this be post-hydriecarba world knockin on 'r door, matey! It be a danger too, since less global waaaarmin means less 'f us!"
Oops! (Score:2)