Morocco's Solar Power Mega-Project (theguardian.com) 102
An anonymous reader writes: Morocco, located along the northwestern African coast, is in prime position to take advantage of solar technology, and they've committed to one of the biggest such projects in the world. The city of Ouarzazate will host "a complex of four linked solar mega-plants that, alongside hydro and wind, will help provide nearly half of Morocco's electricity from renewables by 2020." It will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. "The mirror technology it uses is less widespread and more expensive than the photovoltaic panels that are now familiar on roofs the world over, but it will have the advantage of being able to continue producing power even after the sun goes down." The first phase of the project, called Noor 1, comprises 500,000 solar mirrors that track the sun throughout the day, with a maximum capacity of 160MW. When the full project finishes, it will be able to generate up to 580MW. "Each parabolic mirror is 12 meters high and focused on a steel pipeline carrying a 'heat transfer solution' (HTF) that is warmed to 393C as it snakes along the trough before coiling into a heat engine. There, it is mixed with water to create steam that turns energy-generating turbines."
Re:Funding origin? (Score:5, Informative)
"Morocco: Works on World’s Largest Solar Plant Financed by AfDB Go Underway"
http://www.afdb.org/en/news-an... [afdb.org]
breaking down the different phase funding AC.
Re:Sounds very much like ***PORK*** ! (Score:5, Informative)
The main issues seems to be to try and get away from the "We import 94% of our energy as fossil fuels from abroad and that has big consequences for our state budget".
The cost of another fossil fuel project, the related imports and hard currency exchange should be interesting to see over the project.
The cost of batteries might have to still be reduced to become viable for big grid storage in different parts of the world. Another option is "demand response" and discounted tariffs to try and ensure people use energy during the day vs traditional demand peaks.
ie reshape midday power prices.
Re:Sounds very much like ***PORK*** ! (Score:4, Insightful)
A battery or ultra-capacitor is simply a device that stores energy. A heat tank is also a device that stores energy. They're basically both batteries. The real question is which method is the most efficient. Likely, as they are using the sun to generate heat, it's more efficient to store that energy as heat before they need it.
The battery analogy is far too dumbed down (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. Heat can be useful on it's own. For example a co-generation plant in Australia uses low levels of heat to warm water for an aquaculture project.
Storing as heat gives you plenty of options of what to do with it, as well as potentially providing large scale storage for far more capacity than could be gained for the same cost with batteries or capacitors even if it is far more lossy than either.
Another example is offshore windmills producing compressed air stored in underwater balloons (or in salt mines on land). The storage cost is potentially dirt cheap which outweighs the very lossy conversion to electricity.
You probably know all this, but equating all of the above to batteries just dumbs the entire discussion down to "why not use batteries", which is not something for this time when batteries still suck (just a lot less than they used to).
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You missed the entire point.
It's not much use being efficient if the expense is astronomical at the scale you want to operate at - hence hydro pump storage dams instead of a few million large lithium batteries.
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At large-scale stationary sizes, flow batteries and molten sodium batteries are far more cost effective than lithium. Even lead acid is perfectly feasible and the advantange of that model is that it's almost entirely recyclable at the end fo the device's lifespan (it's about $ per Wh, not about Wh per unit volume or unit mass. Making the battery vault double the size is normally cheaper than using more expensive batteries.)
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It's about using the best cost solution for the _entire_system_, not about lithium vs lead acid
For solar thermal stations, the issue us storing the heat unti its ready to use,
For Solar PV, it's electrical energy.
Pumped hydro is 1: Not particularly efficient (but capable of massive surge currents) and 2: Highly dependent on having suitable geology. There are only a few sites capable of being used for this purpose and their overall capacity is a couple of hours peaking at absolute most. It's cheaper than batt
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"Another example is offshore windmills producing compressed air"
Compressed air systems are about the most inefficient form of energy storage I can think of. When you compress gas it heats up and the heat is normally tossed overboard (waste). When you decompress it, energy has to be added to keep it from being too cold (more waste).
The end result is an end-to-end efficiency of a few percent. If the energy is free then that's tolerable, but it's far more more efficient to store the energy as heat or chemicall
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Do I have to say it a third time? Point missed entirely. Abandoned salt mines (in use) and plastic bags underwater (proposed) come very cheap so throwing away vast amounts of energy no longer matters so much. It's just one of many examples (like the far more practical pump storage) where cheaper storage costs are more important than having some incredibly expansive banks of shortlived batteries.
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Heat can be useful on it's own.
In Ouarzazate?
Re: Sounds very much like ***PORK*** ! (Score:1)
Jesus Christ, Taco's gone off the deep end.
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It's a huge plus to be able to store the energy as heat and generate electricity when you actually need it as opposed to when the sun shines. .
for one thing it means you get a lot more money per kwh. Also there are indications that for really large scale and long term solutions the thermal solar power plants are the way to go http://phoenixprojectfoundatio... [phoenixpro...ndation.us]
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Morocco is a Muslim country. No pork!
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Sharia law forbids interest too, so they should get loans for free.
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Do you have any idea about the scale of batteries and "ultra capacitors" they would need for this? Not to mention the components to regulate charging, discharging, etc. No, of course you don't, because you think things like "heat transfer solution" and "turns into steam" are "complicated sounding stuffs."
Let me try to explain it in terms you'll understand better.
Mirrors shine light on metal pipe.
Metal pipe contains special oil.
Light makes oil hot.
Hot oil dumps into tank.
Oil heats water and makes it boil.
S
Wat? (Score:1)
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It's Morocco, not UK. They ideally situated for solar plants like that.
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It's Morocco, not UK. They ideally situated for solar plants like that.
Oh heck, I was being sarcastic. I'm really a nuc or solar/wind guy at heart. Coal? It's a killer.
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They ideally situated for solar plants like that.
Am I the only one that thinks the combination of precision mirrors/optics and Saharan sand storms might not be a good combination?
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Ouarzazate is on the outer reaches of the Sahara. In fact, Morocco barely contains any Sahara at all, that's over on the Algerian side.
The desert around Ouarzazate is mostly rocky, and it takes several hours in a 4x4 to get to the sandy Sahara people are familiar with.
Re:Wat? (Score:4, Insightful)
Morocco: north west coast of africa. Dominant wind direction: west.
How often is there a sand storm anyway? Sandstorms are more a concern because they darken the sky then because of potential damage.
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A good sandstorm might scour the shine off those fancy mirrors.
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No, you're not. Morocco is probably better off buying a few nuke plants.
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Math levels are quite good for the selected few, but a big engineering project can't rely only on maths.
Re:Wat? (Score:4, Insightful)
It has the advantage of not having to worry about where to store radioactive waste. Not to mention no meltdowns or radioactive leaks. So it's only half a Nuke plants output? Build two.
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Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced 74,258 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about eight yards deep.
http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-C... [nei.org]
So a country that invented nuclear power, currently runs 100 reactors constituting the largest nuclear generation in the world and has been for the last 50 years, only has produced enough "waste" to cover a football field eight yards deep?
That's less space than this plant will take up, for the world's greatest stockpile of nuclear waste...
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It's the same country that banned the recycling of fuel, unlike every other country that has nuclear power. Those eight yards by a football field of "waste," as you so kindly quoted it, are ripe for reprocessing if Congress ever lifts the ban on doing so.
Re:Wat? (Score:4, Insightful)
When you're talking volume of nuclear waste, it's best to measure it in four dimensions.
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Why not five? Six? Two?
If we have to use a fourth dimension, can it be "reason"?
Let's look at the reasonable uses of the nuclear "waste" here: 96% of the "waste" is uranium that when sent through reprocessing for fuel for present LWRs can use up to 30% of this amount. When fast reactors become more mainstream (only large operational plant is in Russia right now; the U.S. pulled all funding in the 1990's out of shortsightedness) that will allow full re-use of the 96% uranium as well as the 1% that is pluton
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That fourth dimension is ~300 years, not tens of thousands.
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The problem is the waste and ecological damage of building massive solar and wind projects are not considered in this logic. Calculate the mining, milling, toxic wastes, etc involved in building massive low output energy devices.
Re:Wat? (Score:5, Insightful)
What's the ecological damage of mining nuclear fuel and building huge reactors and cooling towers? I don't oppose nuclear power but don't pretend it doesn't have problems. I don't understand why every time somebody builds a solar power system people crawl out from under rocks everywhere to attack it. Sure, solar power isn't a panacea but then nothing really is. All energy production comes at a cost both economical and ecological.
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What's the ecological damage of mining nuclear fuel and building huge reactors and cooling towers?
Pretty damn small, given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal or solar power plants, and one unit of nuclear energy requires thousands of times less mining than one unit of fossil or solar (for the panels) energy.
Re:Wat? (Score:4, Funny)
Pretty damn small, :D :D
So is a solar pant in Morroc, considering it is built in the desert
given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal
It can perhaps Substitute *one* coal plant, not hundrets.
or solar power plants As the sizes of plants vary this is not a safe bet either
and one unit of nuclear energy requires thousands of times less mining than one unit of fossil or solar (for the panels) energy.
So you never actually informed yourself about how uranium is mined?
But you dare to give your uneducated opinion?
(*facepalm*)
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given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal or solar power plants
No, that's not "given", you idiot. You can't just make shit up and then claim it's "given". Do even some basic research. The total output of this solar plant at completion is 580MW. The largest planned nuclear reactor will output around 1600MW. At Palo Verde here in Arizona, the largest energy generating station in the country, the 3 reactors each output about 1450MW. At 1600MW, the statement that "one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of solar power plants" is only true if the solar power p
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given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal or solar power plants
No, that's not "given", you idiot. You can't just make shit up and then claim it's "given". Do even some basic research.
If some basic research is performed, how can he make shit up? Some of the pro-nuc crowd are much worse idiots than the anti-nuc crowd.
Here is a solar power plant capable of only 11.4MW (that was state of the art in 2006, the largest solar plant 9 years ago).
Much of the objection to so called alternative energy sources are made using old data. I don't think the proponents of Nuc power realize the disservice they do to the industry. All of those things that make a nuc plant, a nuc plant, make for issues. The incredible energy density, the radiation's effects on materials, all kinds of stuff that makes nuc plants take a long time
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A sunny desert, lots of empty real estate, seems like a pretty natural place to put a solar power generating station. There are places where I would heartily recommend a nuc reactor.
And then there's Arizona, where we have the only major nuclear plant in the world not next to a body of water, and we're finally getting some good solar projects going on in the empty desert between Phoenix and Yuma, as well as all around Phoenix. It's good to see solar taking hold here, and I've never had a problem with the nuke plant (they have agreements with the nearby cities to take treated wastewater to use as coolant). The only issue with the plant is that it's upwind from the Phoenix area, so that
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"The only issue with the plant is that it's upwind from the Phoenix area,"
If "we" got water away from the fuel, being upwind of anything wouldn't matter. Nuclear plants don't "explode" in the A-bomb sense, they vent radioactive steam and/or hydrogen if they get too hot, or in worst case you get a pipe/boiler burst.
These things happen no matter how safe you make the system, so commonsense should dictate that radioactives can't get dissolved into the water in the first place (molten sodium is particularly stu
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"In addition, any second or third world country undertaking a nuc energy project is going to come under intense scrutiny."
China is more than willing to sell anyone a civil nuclear plant, complete with the security systems and staff required to run it.
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"In addition, any second or third world country undertaking a nuc energy project is going to come under intense scrutiny."
China is more than willing to sell anyone a civil nuclear plant, complete with the security systems and staff required to run it.
Umm, the scrutiny won't be coming from them, but countries who don't want them processing the spent fuel for you know, explodey stuff.
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If there is Plutonium in that waste, someone should tell the NRC, we should be reprocessing it to pull that out as it is damn useful to NASA and the DOD.
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Re:Wat? (Score:4, Insightful)
I haven't run the numbers, but I'd imagine that solar thermal does pretty well in regards to waste and ecological damage.
Like most other energy plants, it's mostly concrete and steel. The HTF is some kind of synthetic oil that gets reused. If they reclaim the water from the steam turbine, the plant will use very little resources once it's finished. So right there, it's already beating coal, oil, and gas.
Mirrors would need repolished, but considering that could probably be done onsite, it would be using clean energy. Motors would have to be rebuilt occasionally. Electronics would have to be replaced from time to time. Any energy plant would require maintenance of some sort anyway, so it's not really much different than wind in that regard.
It shades areas of the desert, but not completely. I'd be willing to bet it has less effect on desert life in that area than a hydro plant would have.
It doesn't require rare earth metals like a photovoltaic setup would. There's no mining involved other than the steel and concrete (which any power plant would have plenty of anyway - wind probably more steel and less concrete). Glass isn't bad, environmentally speaking - heat, sand, and some common minerals. So there really shouldn't be much in the way of toxic waste, unless they're using a particularly nasty paint (those can vary widely in eco-friendliness).
I'd say this is about as eco-friendly as you can get for a power plant. Feel free to point out anything I missed, I just woke up.
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> It doesn't require rare earth metals like a photovoltaic setup would.
PV panels don't need rare earths. They are made of silicon (for the cells), plus trace elements like Phosphorus to provide the right semiconductor properties. The frame is aluminum and glass, with typically polyvinylacetate (plastic) backing sheet. You need wires to connect the cells to each other, and then the panels to each other. The mounting for the panels is typically steel or aluminum, with some concrete to anchor it to the
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It was apparently a bad day for posting on /., as my memory is apparently failing me. I was probably thinking about batteries, but who knows.
I knew there were environmental issues with PV, but I misremembered what they were. Apparently, they're related to the manufacturing process. According to Wikipedia:
The manufacturing processes of solar cell involve the emissions of several toxic, flammable and explosive chemicals. Lately, in the field of photovoltaic research, there has been a continual rise in research and development efforts focused on reducing mass during cell manufacture. Such efforts have resulted in reducing the thickness of solar cells and thus the next generation solar cells are becoming thinner and eventually risks of exposure are reduced nevertheless, all chemicals must be carefully handled to ensure minimal human and environmental contact. The large scale deployment of such renewable energy technologies could result in potential negative environmental implications. These potential problems can pose serious challenges in promulgating such technologies to a broad segment of consumers.
Glass doesn't have that problem, although I can't really say for the mirror backing.
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"I'd imagine that solar thermal does pretty well in regards to waste and ecological damage."
Deserts and other environments which are ideal for solar-thermal are extremely fragile ecosystems. Just the fact of having the stuff there and people wandering around them is extremely damaging.
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Every environment is "extremely fragile."
Deserts have the advantage that they tend to be large and there's no shortage of them. Habitat loss is minimal. A solar thermal plant might be large, but it takes up only a tiny percentage of the desert it's in.
I understand your sentiment, but you should probably save it for ecologies that actually need the protection.
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What are you babbling about? The full national project, at 580MW, is almost half of what a minimal nuclear power plant puts out. The Moroccans are demonstrating that dedicating massive resources to not only a major national project, but one of the biggest in the world using cutting edge solar technology, can almost equal half the value of a single 1970's era nuke plant. Nothing like being underwhelmed...
There is nothing cutting edge about this project. Regardless, I was being sarcastic.
I don't have much against nuc plants, although I don't trust the bean counters and top management, who are primarily interested in minimal costs, deadlines, and safety is well down on the list despite what we're told. But if they want to build a mirror plant, they can have at it. At least they don't have to worry about fuel disposal.
a nice start, but... (Score:2, Insightful)
just for context, 580 MW is the power output of a single medium-sized natural gas power plant. I'm a big fan of solar, and the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and all that, but they've got a long way to go to make a dent in regional energy needs.
also, $9B for 580 MW comes out to ~$15/W, which is a pretty steep capex (but with hopefully minimal opex due to not needing fuel). Compare to non-thermal PV solar, with installed capex cost of say $2/W and no/fewer moving parts (so les opex, al
Re:a nice start, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nations are finally waking up to the decades of petrodollar loans and exchange rates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Long term domestic math on projects might reflect past issues with huge loans, crushing hard currency interest payments and needed support for a "medium-sized natural gas power plant".
Re:a nice start, but... (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that they wouldn't have thought about it, but wouldn't it have been better in that case to make it 50:50 PV:Solar Thermal or so?
The PV provides the electricity for the day time use, while Solar Thermal just stores the energy in molten salt. In the night, electricity is taken from the molten salt.
Isn't the price difference per watt is so high that it makes sense to have PV along with it?
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Are you suggesting that they should remove some reflector mirrors and replace them with PV panels? Mixing technologies within a single site is poor economics in general, but with solar thermal it is particularly bad.
In general, mixing different technologies doubles the cost, makes maintenance harder, and removes the economy of scale. For example, they would need two different types of power infrastructure on one site. But in particular with solar thermal: more mirrors means more heat is focused onto the
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Clarification:
Reading again, you meant changing one of the 4 sites to PV. Sorry. That approach wouldn't impact the efficiency of one of the solar thermal towers. But it would still pose the engineering cost problems.
I do wonder what the limitation is that makes it better to build 4 solar thermal plants rather than one big one. Maybe it can't handle that much heat? Maybe maintenance so they can shut one down and the others still function? Maybe aiming the mirrors over a larger distance is hard? Hmm...
Interesting test case. (Score:2)
It is in an environment which will be naturally tough on the system. While capex is crazy high it will be interesting to see how it stacks up cost wise over a 50 year life span. It may be the as we get better at building these sytems and production infrastructure scales that this type of plant could deliver a decent cost per watt.
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I'm thinking that innovations in electrostatic dust control developed here may have applications for Lunar colonies...
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"It is in an environment which will be naturally tough on the system"
That's an understatment and a half.
I'd give it a decade or less before the thermal cycling (deserts get _cold_ at night, even equatorial ones) results in astronomical maintenance costs and kills the project. Going from 300+C daytime to more or less zero every day is going to be hell on the mirrors and focal points and that's before weather factors are factored in.
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Actually the daily temperature range in Ouarzazate isn't that great The coldest the air temp gets is 5c in January and the max air temp is 35c in July. In any given month the differential doesn't get above about 15C. I don't think the there should be temperature issues outside the norm that this type of installation would see anywhere in the world.
The site also has really really low rainfall - 40mm in a month is a huge month. So there should be limited issues from water and hence water marking on the mi
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0C or 5C or even 35C is a minor variation compared to the 300+C at the mirror focal point. It's that area which will be subjected to the greatest thermal cycling stresses and will break down fastest if allowed to cool overnight.
Dirty mirrrors/water marking are absolutely minor concerns - the first is usually taken care of with in desert environments with an integral automated brush which sweeps the mirror daily (these have been used on solar farms for 20+ years) and the second would affect less than 1% of t
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It -> If
Re:Interesting test case. (Score:4, Insightful)
It by "natural", you mean bombs and grenades, yeah, it can get kinda rough.
It is being built in Morocco, not Syria.
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Yeah, the place is a real paradise [youtube.com]... Maybe I've been watching too many Humphrey Bogart movies...
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Huh? Morocco is pretty safe. Sure its got issues but they are relatively minor and I doubt you would see infrastructure like this being damaged by bombs. I'd suggest if it was built in the US there would be a higher risk of rednecks shooting the mirrors for shits and giggles.
Re:Interesting test case. (Score:5, Informative)
I'm guessing you meant 2011 instead of 2001. There have been bombings in 2003, 2007 and 2011. So yes they do have a terrorism problem but it is less that what has occurred in the US or the UK for example.
As for your friend, my condolences.
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From Wikipedia:
The manufacturing processes of solar cell involve the emissions of several toxic, flammable and explosive chemicals. Lately, in the field of photovoltaic research, there has been a continual rise in research and development efforts focused on reducing mass during cell manufacture. Such efforts have resulted in reducing the thickness of solar cells and thus the next generation solar cells are becoming thinner and eventually risks of exposure are reduced nevertheless, all chemicals must be carefully handled to ensure minimal human and environmental contact. The large scale deployment of such renewable energy technologies could result in potential negative environmental implications.
PV panels wear out and have to be replaced periodically. Mirrors do too (you can only repolish them so much), but they're just glass with a thin metallic backing, and unlike PV panels, they could be produced locally. Depending on your heat source, glass is about as eco-friendly as you get materials-wise.
There's no reason why they couldn't use battery storage with this. The thermal battery is just a byproduct of the way solar thermal works - you have the stored heat whether you want it or n
Where again? (Score:3)
Morocco, located along the northwestern African coast
I'm guessing that anyone who has to be told where Morocco is will also need to be told where the northwestern African coast is. :p
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Flamebait responding to flamebait. Who wants to respond to this?
Well me apparantly, since I don`t get this comparison that frequently comes up. The geographic knowledge of internal states of a nation is more detailed knowledge than geographic knowledge of reasonably sized nations. Not just a size thing either. Wyoming is big, but Sakha [wikipedia.org] is 12x bigger, and most people still don`t know its location.
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I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, uh, people out there in our nation don't have maps and, uh, I believe that our education like such as in South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future [for our children].
HELIOS One? (Score:2)