World's Largest Solar Array to use Stirling Engine

An anonymous reader writes "Stirling engines are not a neglected or forgotten technology after all, according to a story at PESN. With 20 years of in-the-field fine-tuning, Stirling Energy Systems is now ready to go big -- real big. They signed a purchase agreement Tuesday with Southern California Edison (SEC), to install a 20,000 dish array that will cover 4,500 acres and will be capable of generating 500 megawatts of electricity -- more than all other U.S. solar projects combined -- making this the largest solar installation in the world. Each collector has a 37-foot-diameter array of mirrors to focus the sun's rays on the Stirling engine, which turns the heat into rotational torque for electricity generation. According to a spokesperson for SCE, this purchase will be in their commercial interest, requiring no subsidy in order to compete, implying that the efficiencies of the technology will give them an edge in the market."

Good

[RandUser]

I'm glad to see alternative energy sources being developed, I just wish public opinion would change faster so we can get some more nuclear plants as well.

Re:Good

[magarity]

As long as they're pebble bed reactors, I'm all for it. The hugemongous three mile island style are white elephants in comparison.

Re:

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Re:Good

[Ironsides]

I'm not sure why the lack of interest in pebble beds, but I'm guessing they need some political pressure...

As I understand it, the pebble bed nuclear reactors make it really hard to re-enrich the uranium after usage. This is a bad idea as re-enriched uranium can be reused and produces less radioactive waste in the long run. All we have to do to solve the reenrichment problem and a large part of our nuclear waste is to build a fast breeder reactor and start recycling the used material.

This was the original plan when nuclear power plants were first developed. President Carter used execuitive order to ban fast breeder reactors back in the 70's, so it wouldn't take much to undo that ban.

Re:Good

[richie2000]

President Carter used execuitive order to ban fast breeder reactors back in the 70's

As an old Navy Nuclear technician that was personally involved in atleast one radiation clean-up, I would imagine he had some very good reasons for doing that at the time. Would you happen to know his reasons for banning them and if they may still be valid?

Re:Good

[True Grit]

and if they may still be valid?

"breeder" still manages to refer to several different types, so there isn't a blanket answer. Ordinary "breeders" still have that same *potential* problem, but we don't just have "ordinary" breeders anymore.

While the current fad seems to be over PBMRs, maybe because of the neat name I guess, my favorite still remains the Integral Fast Reactor [berkeley.edu], not only because of safety features, but because these could run for decades just by burning all the spent fuel from our conventional reactors. Newflash: we don't *need* a hole in the ground for most nuclear waste, just chuck it into an IFR.

Re:Good

[Ironsides]

Would you happen to know his reasons for banning them and if they may still be valid?

Fast breeder reactors produce Plutonium 239. [gsu.edu] For those others who don't know Pu-239 is the form of plutonium used in nuclear weapons. As for carter, See this post [slashdot.org].

Re:Good

[richie2000]

Frankly, I've always thought that Carter's moves on energy were irrational and borderline cookoo given that he and I attended the same nuclear power training several decades appart.

Maybe you never had the misfortune of having to clean up after a nuclear accident? And maybe he had access to a lot more information about these accidents than you or I ever will? I dunno, that's why I asked if anyone knew why he banned breeders. Apparently, it was an attempt to hinder proliferation of weapons-grade plutonium, a subject I suspect never came up in your nuke power training...

Cite source for clean-up as the Navy had not yet had one accident by the time he was discharged. To this day, we are still waiting for a screw up.

I never said it was a Navy screwup. Non-Navy screw ups galore [wikipedia.org].

December 12, 1952 - The first serious nuclear disaster occurred at the NRX reactor in Chalk River, Canada. A massive power excursion destroyed the core, resulting in a partial meltdown. A series of hydrogen gas explosions threw a four-ton gasholder dome four feet (1.2 m) into the air, where it jammed in the superstructure. Thousands of curies (several terabecquerels) of fission products were released into the atmosphere, and a million US gallons (3,800 m) of radioactively contaminated water was pumped out of the basement into shallow trenches not far from the Ottawa River. The core was buried. Jimmy Carter, then a nuclear engineer in the US Navy, was among the cleanup crew.

Re:Good

[Squalish]

I've been convinced after doing some research that the likelyhood of the geiger counter becoming a whole lot more active very quickly is greater in the struggle over the last few oil fields than it is from waste plutonium.

A couple of good reasons...

[Goonie]

I can't find the reference, but part of the problem is that the US nuclear regulatory regime is designed around the assumption of monolithic, large light-water reactors. The idea of a modular system where you can add another reactor module quickly doesn't fit in with the approval process, removing one of the biggest advantages.

Secondly, US companies aren't developing PBMR designs; South African and Chinese ones are. Funnily enough, the subsidies for nuclear R&D and deployment currently floating around Washington are aimed at the American nuclear power industry, not its foriegn competitors.

Mind you, if Westinghouse's cost estimates on its new AP-1000 power plant design turn out to be it's going to be pretty competitively priced anyway. Pebble beds aren't the be-all and end-all. One concern is whether there'll be enough helium available to run them...

PBMR coolant

[Engineer-Poet]

You don't necessarily need helium; HTGR's have used carbon dioxide (British MAGNOX). If we run out of helium, we could use neon (another noble gas). It may require some small redesign because of lower thermal conductivity and viscosity, but it should not be a big deal.

The atmosphere is about 18 ppm neon. That's one resource that's not going to run out.

Re:Good

[orz]

I doubt that slashdotters (or policicians) making decisions based upon idealogy and buzz will produce better reactor designs than people who have incentive and resources to make smart decisions.

That said, I'd be happy to see more research into pebble bed reactors, and into energy amplifiers / ADS (subcritical fission reactor plus a particle accelerator), and other promising nuclear reactor designs that come along.
I just wouldn't assume that just because pebble bed reactors have some clever safety and effici

Re:Good

[Rei]

Because, naturally, you know more about the economics, safety, and other issues relating to various nuclear reactor designs than Southern Company.

Do you even know *any* next-gen reactor designs besides PBMRs?

The standard anti-nuclear answer. How smart!

[Draveed]

The reactors at Chernobyl are not the same design of any reactors built in the US. So there's no point in bringing it up unless you just want to scare people.

And the fears over Three Mile Island are just plain ignorance. It was a minor incident that didn't hurt anyone. Don't believe me? Too bad. The Pennsylvania court system does. After years of litigation, the courts ruled there isn't enough evidence anyone was harmed by the accident to support even going to trial.

My favorite quote is, "The court has searched the record for any and all evidence which construed in a light most favorable to Plaintiffs creates a genuine issue of material fact warranting submission of their claims to a jury. This effort has been in vain."
Here's a link to the ruling - Click Me [pbs.org]

Re:Good

[venril]

There was an interesting documentary on what-went-wrong. They were monkeying around with power levels to perform some tests by manipulating damping rod positions, and water flow into the core. [btw, the pumps used to move water into the core were electric and, you guessed it, were powered by tapping from the plants own generators. Low or no power, no pumps =P ] While the rods could damp the reaction, water was critical to control/moderate temp change over time. Heat removal by the water buffered the th

Re:Good

[Rei]

Yeah. Because everyone wants a nuclear reactor that combines the wonderful properties of graphite [uic.com.au] (see "The graphite fire" subsection) as a moderator, with water (graphite generates explosive hydrogen with high temperature steam) often in the primary or secondary cooling loop (helium is the primary coolant), with safety features such as no containment structure [wikipedia.org] (this list is just a start - there's many times more that didn't make the list)

Yes, PBMRs have a negative void coefficient (reaction slows as temperature increases); big deal, so does almost every reactor build in the west in the past three decades. Yes, helium is the primary coolant; that doesn't help when there's a jam or corrosion that leads to a rupture, in which case water and/or air enters the chamber (a much hotter chamber than PWRs) - and yes, this has already happened. Containment structures have saved our collective arses from the unexpected too many times to be omitted.

PBMR proponents talk about safety, but they're really about reactor cost. They're hardly the only innovative reactor design out there, but they're apparently the only one that your average slashdotter knows about. There are thorium breeders, reactors that run on unenriched fuel, and designs like my favorite, BREST [iaea.org] - a lead-bismuth breeder which can cool itself with natural convection, uses the ground as shielding, has the fuel naturally encased in lead, and unlike most breeders, uses no liquid sodium.

As an aside, we really should move to safe breeder designs, either thorium or uranium based.
U-235 is only 0.7% of natural uranium, and natural uranium isn't incredibly plentiful in deposits concentrated enough to justify mining (I read once that known deposits would supply the world at current power consumption for only a few hundred years). It's a shame that most U-238 goes to waste (yes, some is used in things like armor, bullets, and weights, but we produce far more of it than is used for such tasks)

Re:Good

[Rei]

1. There is a big debate over the graphite's role in Chernobyl. The Soviets who put out the fire were insistant that the graphite was burning - they even had debates over how to put out the burning graphite without encouraging faster burning or secondary reactions. Nuclear professionals in America are insistant that nuclear grade graphite only erodes - that it doesn't burn - and lab tests of fresh graphite hold this out. Even simple erosion of radioisotope-laden graphite would be awful, of course (especially in this case where the graphite is in direct contact with the nuclear reactants and daughter products), but it's hard to deny the Soviet field reports. In all likelyhood, fresh nuclear-grade graphite doesn't burn well, but after it is bombarded by high energy radiation and corrosive chemicals for long periods, it does.

2. There *Is* water in the system of most PBMR designs. As I stated, helium is the primary coolant; however, some use water as a secondary coolant in the core (such as China's design), and even some designs that don't use it in the core have a secondary loop in which water is pyrolized into hydrogen and oxygen.

3. "seven layers of containment". Um, yeah right. There's only one pressure-tight containment level in PBMRs. The graphite isn't pressure tight - it's just a coating, and one that gets highly contaminated in the process. The reactor vessel and associated helium loop and pellet recycling are pressure tight. Unlike most nuclear reactors, the reactor building is not a positive pressure structure.

4. "Without the helium moderator the chain reaction stops". This is called "a negative void coefficient", and it's nothing remotely new. Three mile island had a negative void coefficent too. The problem is that the reactor core, even if *all* reaction were to cease, still has a huge amount of heat inside of it, and this residual heat is what poses the threat. By the way, helium is not a moderator - graphite is. You'll note that in demonstrations, the only thing that they demonstrate is shutting down the helium coolant - they never violate the integrity of the pressure vessel. This is because oxygen (and even potentially water or steam) can get in, and this can have very serious consequences. And, without a containment structure...

5. "Gas moderated reactors are a means to make Thorium breeders" - Once again, the term is "gas cooled", not "gas moderated". Do you even know what a moderator is?

Re:Good

[N3wsByt3]

"Do you even know what a moderator is?"

Many times, I've asked the same question, when reading posts on slashdot... ;-)

Re:Good

[Knuckles]

I posted something similar a few days ago but got no replies, and I think this is the most overlooked effect of nuclear energy (including fusion btw, but maybe less so, and except maybe the cold variety ;)

Nuclear power leads to a militarization of society due to the huge risks involved, and adds tremendously to a concentration of power - electrical, political, and economical - due to the high complexity and costs, and necessary scale involved.

The first big post-war waves of increased police and governmental

Re:Good

[MyLongNickName]

If gas hits $3/gallon, and stays there for a year, the American public will accept anything. While I cringe when I have to buy gas, I hope the price keeps going up. Maybe then, we will have the economic incentive to kick the oil habit.

Re:Good

[norwoodites]

Let see, it is about $5/gallon in the UK and the US is complaining about $3/gallon wtf. This is just under estimate too because I am converting from £ to $ and liters to gallons.

Re:Good

[rebelcool]

yeah but britain is much smaller and its economically feasible to build nationwide mass transit systems.

The US relies on trucking and personal automotives for its economic basis because of the extreme expense it would take to build the massive mass transit systems such a large nation would need, to equate.

Re:Good

[Rei]

Oh! Logic train a'comin!

ding ding ding Ding Ding DING DING DING Diing diiing diiiing.....

Darn, missed it. :P

Plain and simple, gas prices in Europe are high because of taxes.

Oil companies aren't monopolies - it's a very varied industry, and fiercely competitive. It's worse than many industries, because they're all selling essentially the same thing. They'll push particular blends and additives, but it really comes down to the same product, so it's really down to whoever can sell it the cheapest.

By the way, the main reason that oil companies are turning such tidy profits right now is because they had been working to be profitable at 20$/barrel, and suddenly it's at 60$/barrel. Note that the high prices are much more of a benefit to producers than refiners, although the whole industry is quite profitable right now. If you have infrastructure or build infrastructure, it's in such demand, you're going to make money.

Re:Good

[CosmeticLobotamy]

The UK would fit in my basement if I moved some stuff around. Why do you people even have cars?

Re:Good

[MyLongNickName]

In another thread you state you make a piddly $20/hr (if I understood your comment correctly). Yet you don't mind paying $0.35 to drive a mile?

$3.50 for high test, and I'll still drive it, and look cooler than you.
And if you think your car makes you look cool, then you really are a shallow individual.

Re:Good

[MillionthMonkey]

Car engines can't be nuclear. While nuclear reactors can be made with the appropriate power output for a car, the biggest problem is that the driver would be killed by the neutrons that would drift out of the engine. Neutrons are a bitch to shield against and a car would not be able to carry the necessary material.

Re:Good

[Danger Stevens]

But the big argument against all-electric (also called gas-optional) cars is that the electricity has to come from *somewhere* and coal plants aren't much better than combustion engines.

If the grid runs off clean and safe nuclear, cars can run of batteries.

Re:Good

[Aaron England]

Bush could really do well for the country if he were to sieze the moment and make an appeal for developing nuclear powerplants in the name of national security.

Re:Good

[Breakfast Pants]

If nuclear plants can prove to be finacially viable on their own then I am all for lifting the regulations against new ones. The problem I have is that US population essentially pays all of their liability insurance; in that there is a federal law mandating that they don't have to have any. If they had to pay that liability and still could be finacially sucessful I would think they would have reached a pretty safe point. If they are as safe as everyone says then why do the need us to pay their insurance?

Not surprising

[benjamindees]

I'm not surprised stirlings are finally profitable.

But those giant dishes look expensive and complicated.

Doesn't anybody have a way to make large parabolic reflectors cheaply? Or isn't there a way to do away with the tracking devices?

Re:Not surprising

[magarity]

Doesn't anybody have a way to make large parabolic reflectors cheaply?
 
We could cover some old 8-foot satellite TV dishes with aluminum foil.

Re:Not surprising

[inode_buddha]

I've seen people take the old 6-foot TV dishes and mirrorize them, either with silver paint or glueing a zillion tiny glass mirors onto them. Mother Earth News did a project like that back in the 1970's IIRC. The heat near the focal point was in the thousands of degrees F and powered a small energy-efficient home.

Cheap Parabolic Dishes (in a relativesense)

[Redge]

A company in Australia is developing this type of technology for self-contained power generation in remote locations (and 3rd world countries/natural disaster areas). They are using a parabolic dish made from mirror polished bands of stainless steel. Stainless steel (while expensive) stands up to bad weather much better than glass mirrors - and by making the dish with bands (with gaps in between them) you reduce the effect that wind had on the dish.

They are making a dish that isn't affected by wind (except for wind that flattens buildings) doesn't get damaged by hail (unless it's bigger than a cricket ball) and is only 5% less efficient than the same size mirror dish. They don't have a website worth mentioning - but they are developing all this in conjunction with the CSIRO - so you may find something here (CSIRO) http://www.csiro.gov.au/ [csiro.gov.au] about it all. Look for Sterling engine power generation. The CSIRO did publish something recently in a subscription only publication about this.

In case you were wondering how I know - my brother works for the small electronics firm that came up with the parabolic dish idea. They have also come up with a sun tracking mechanism that costs $15 to manufacture.

Pity a 5KW generation system costs $25000 all up - but they expect it to last for 25 years or more.

All dollar figures here are Australian Pesos.

Oh yeah - they get around the "How do you generate electricity at night without sunlight light" issue, by using the dish to heat up 300KG (or so) of salt and graphite - which then acts as a heat battery. Apparently they can run the Stirling engine for 3 days or so after the Salt Cell gets to about 900 degrees centigrade.

Say "no" to Solar

[Anonymous Coward]

While the solar panel industry would like you to believe Solar Power to be "eco friendly", unlike most "alternative energy" technologies, Solar energy is not a renewable resource. We have a limited amount of sunlight and increased use of commercial solar power would mean less to be used elsewhere, potentially creating an ecological disaster if this happened on a large enough scale. The solar industry likes to throw around statistics about how the entire U.S. could entirely move over to solar power if we created such-and-such amount of solar panels, but what they don't mention is if we did this we would completely exhaust our supply of solar energy by 2150.

Use of solar power should be avoided at all costs. Help promote renewable energy sources instead.

http://nosolar.net/ [nosolar.net]

Mod parent up

[AoT]

Come on, it is funny.

Re:Say "no" to Solar

[fimbulvetr]

While this guy is obviously joking, I've always had the dumb assumption that something like this might actually affect something.

Could the lack of energy being pumped into the ground (via sunlight, of course) affect weather patterns in the area? I mean, if the ground isn't as warm as it should be, would that mean cold fronts/warm fronts act differently? How about the mostiure the ground collects (dew, etc). What happens when the this is no longer evaporated?

Absurd? Probably.

Re:Say "no" to Solar

[Vombatus]

We have a limited amount of sunlight

But, if you save some of that daylight http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/20/195 7200&tid=103&tid=185&tid=218 [slashdot.org], you would have more to use.

Conversion Table: Megawatts to Homes

[Anonymous Coward]

If anyone is wondering, 500 megawatts can power about 500,000 homes.

Re:Conversion Table: Megawatts to Homes

[ergo98]

If anyone is wondering, 500 megawatts can power about 500,000 homes.

I worked on projects for large methane->power facilities in California (and across the US), which turned landfill belchings into fuel for large engines. One of these facilities, in a dinky little building, put out about 6MW all day long. Not quite 500MW, but it was pretty impressive given that it was methane that would otherwise have been flared off uselessly.

For context, typical new nuclear power plants produce around 600-1200MW.

Environmental loop...

[ergo98]

4500 acres of solar collectors? This must throw hardcore environmentalists into a infinite loop.

Re:Environmental loop...

[JanneM]

4500 acres of solar collectors? This must throw hardcore environmentalists into a infinite loop.

This makes sense to have in dry, hot areas (where you have lots of dependable, strong sun). Much better than using the same land to grow wheat, corn or rice - a monoculture is no better than this, and the use of scarce water is much less with the solar array than with crops.
 

Re:Environmental loop...

[Capt'n Hector]

Um, why? This is absolutely fabulous. There are no toxic materials in this setup (well, depending on what they use for the mirrors), compared to solar panels, it has a great energy density (and this is the first generation, too. It can only go up.) If the place is profitable, more will sprout up like crazy... throw in a few government subsidies, and we have green power, folks. This is the real thing.

Re:Environmental loop...

[AoT]

Yes, because this is so much worse than the massive amount of land taken up by oil pipelines.

Besides, 4500 acres is only 7 square miles. I am sure they can find some place in Sothern California that is already an environmental shithole to put this in.

Re:Environmental loop...

[syphax]

OK, here are some notes on this:

1. It's not like you are covering 4500 acres (that's 7 sq. miles) with solid concrete. The actual footprint of these dishes is fairly small; the main impact will be the amount of sunlight hitting the ground. judging from the area [google.com], this may not be such bad thing. Shade for the desert tortoises and the like.

2. It's reasonably scalable. Using SGS's numbers, [stirlingenergy.com] and being conservative, let's say these things can crank out 400 kWh/m2 per annum. At 2004 US electrical consumption of roughly 1.2 trillion kWh (source: EIA [doe.gov]), you're talking about needing ~30 billion sq. m. of collectors, which is about 12,000 square miles, to supply 100% of current electrical needs. You could fit that in about 5% of Texas- not an insignificant amount of land, but doable (you don't have to have all the collectors in one place, and you can probably install them on under-utilized land- say, parking lots- just jack up the collectors a few feet to provide SUV clearance).

So although I'm sure some people will get bent out of shape, I don't see the land area requirements as a big deal. If these things are truly economically competitive, as the article suggests, watch out.

Re:Environmental loop...

[Manchot]

Well, if you think about it, 4500 acres is really only a 2.65 by 2.65 mile square. That's not really that much environmental impact, especially if the thing is in the middle of the desert.

Re:Environmental loop...

[MyLongNickName]

My question: If you did this, what would it do to global warming? Not only are you still receiving the same energy from the sun directly, but now you are adding a lot of energy that was directed at the moon. Not sure how it would work out, but sending gigawatts from the moon would have to have SOME effect.

Anyone with a more educated opinion?

Re:Environmental loop...

[Jeremi]

We should just cover the whole moon with this stuff such that the focal point would be here on Earth.

Dude, that's not an energy source, that's a death ray! Tired of listening to Kim Jong Il threaten nuclear armageddon? ZZZAPPP!!!

Re:Environmental loop...

[Juggle]

You'd be surprised. Deserts are a hot spot for environmentalists and they've already blocked several large scale solar projects in the southwest preciesely because they'd keep the sun from reaching the desert floor. Not to mention the "Blight" factor of detracing from the natural beauty of the desert.

Espically given the location suggested for this I doubt it will ever be completed due to environmental protests and lawsuits.

space power on earth!

[J05H]

Sterling engines are pretty cool. They have one huge advantage over silicon solar power: much much less pollution in production. Photovoltaics are basically large chips, they use the same nasty chemicals and lots of electricity. Sterling engines are just machines, and very scalable apparently.

Funny that one solar-dynamic powerplant will double the solar power being utilized.

One of the Sterling engine makers has a deep-space powercell that combines a sterling converter and a big hunk of plutonium oxide. Man, I wish I could get one for the basement...

Josh

Re:space power on earth!

[alienw]

Yeah, well, I got news for you: melting steel or aluminum also uses nasty chemicals and electricity. Hell, just about any industrial process uses them. The real problem with photovoltaics is their high cost.

Re:space power on earth!

[Jeff DeMaagd]

Part of the high cost of photovoltiacs is that it takes as much energy to make one as it will ever produce in its useful life.

Re:space power on earth!

[alienw]

Are you pulling this out of your ass? Photovoltaics cost a lot because they are labor-intensive to produce and require specialized equipment. If you actually bothered to research the numbers, you would find out that solar panels generate that amount in only 3 years or so (out of 30 or more).

Re:space power on earth!

[Artifakt]

Several sources of Aluminum are demonstrated and proven 'environmentally friendly' technologies (as much as technologies ever are). Take for example Alcoa's TN. plant, one of the largest single sources of refined Aluminum in the entire world (Historically, there have been entire decades when this was THE largest single source). Electric power for this facility comes entirely from four hydroelectric powerplants - Chilhowee, Calderwood, Cheoah and Santeetlah. Several other Aluminum operations, including A

Colorado voter initiative

[magarity]

The voters here in Colorado were suckered into an initiative requiring the utility companies to get 15% of their power from renewable sources whether it made economic sense or not. Since it looks like this thing actually does then I hope someone from the local utility reads /.

Re:Colorado voter initiative

[fimbulvetr]

The voters here in Colorado were suckered into an initiative requiring the utility companies to get 15% of their power from renewable sources whether it made economic sense or not.

The spin you put on this makes it seem bad, however, relatively speaking our idea of efficient alternative energy is less efficient than coal mining and what have you. So, sure, it might not make economical sense compared to non-renewable energy, but that doesn't mean it's a bad thing!

Another reason this whole thing isn't that bad is because it forces companies (Xcel, etc.) to actually work on R&D for making their energy production more efficient - they now have a vested interest in it. If that were not the case, they'd just be burning the candle at both ends with oil/coal and worry about the future when the future came about. Xcel has been putting in a lot of wind generators in SW Minnesota, and they're not done. I love to see those generators every time I travel through there - it means something is actually getting done.

As for the voters in Colorado getting suckered in, well, I hear you, they're not the smartest...

4500 Acres Sounds Like a Lot

[yrogerg]

but for the record: 4500 acres is only 7 square miles.

It sounds a lot smaller when you put it that way.

Re:4500 Acres Sounds Like a Lot

[Quasar1999]

You're talking almost 30 miles to go around the perimeter of this thing. That would take an entire day to walk around. And that's considered small? I'd have to disagree, but I guess it's all relative.

Re:4500 Acres Sounds Like a Lot

[Chmarr]

Cheap, not free. Cheap.

The Edison URL

[TedTschopp]

The Edison URL should be www.edisonnews.com [edisonnews.com]. Yes, we require you to put the www on the front of it. And yes, I work for them.

CNAME

[imag0]

...Yes, we require you to put the www on the front of it...

Then you have a brokeass CNAME entry which goes against the RFC's, if I recall.

Do the internet a favor and just say no to worthless CNAME crap. A browser will get to the right place without that dumbass "www" tacked to the front of a domain name.

Re:CNAME

[multipartmixed]

> Then you have a brokeass CNAME entry which goes against the RFC's, if I recall.

You don't really know much about DNS, do you?

www.edisonnews.com is a CNAME for d083489.edisonnews.com. There is nothing "broke ass" about it.

edisonnews.com has no DNS entry whatsoever (excluding SOA, obviously).

> A browser will get to the right place without that dumbass
> "www" tacked to the front of a domain name.

Who says that machine d083489 is the right place?

Additionally, even if edisonnews.com. CNAME d083489 was

Stirling engines

[JanneM]

Stirling engines certainly aren't forgotten or neglected. Swedish submarines use Stirling engines for propulsion, for instance.

Re:Stirling engines

[apa666]

The only drawback is they lose some of their stealthyness due to the giant solar reflector beaming sunlight down the periscope.

Re:Stirling engines

[aktzin]

The nice folks at Kockums (a division of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems in Sweden) set up this web page in English with a cutaway view and diagram:

http://www.kockums.se/Submarines/aipstirling.html [kockums.se]

OK, so what's the catch?

[Bryan Ischo]

I know some knowledgeable Slashdot reader can help me here. What I want to know is, what is the drawback to such a power system? It sounds like it generates quite a bit of power, and looks like a completely clean source. Are these things super expensive to build? Is it really hard to keep these things lined up with the sun to produce optimal power?

There is the issue of not being able to produce any power at night. But intelligent use of battery stores along with some supplemental traditional powered generators might take care of that, especially since power draw from the grid is (I'm guessing) much less at night.

So - what's the catch? Why aren't fields of these things going up like crazy?

Re:OK, so what's the catch?

[LurkerXXX]

For one, they require a lot of direct sunshine. The desert location these will go in is fine, but you won't see too many 4500 acre lots of them sprining up in Merry old England.

Re:OK, so what's the catch?

[aktzin]

Wikipedia to the rescue:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine#Probl ems_with_Stirling_engines [wikipedia.org]

Re:OK, so what's the catch?

[Qzukk]

Why aren't fields of these things going up like crazy?

The real reason? Because cities can think of better things to do with their land than use 4500 acres (3/4 football field is about 1 acre. You could put a lot of stadiums on that land) of it on stuff like this, and unlike other cultures that have become used to growing upwards, planning a city to have all of the buildings the same height so that the entire array can sit on top of them just isn't an accepted idea here.

Re:OK, so what's the catch?

[Artifakt]

Drawbacks? Here's some, although they are neither (IMHO) all that serious, and I like this technology as a whole, and would say these won't stop it in the long run.
1. Heat - Focused mirrors in large banks are extremely hot at the focal points. When you're talking 500 Mw. output, your talking about lots of points inside that 4700 acre area where temperatures must be enormous (3,000 degrees F or so if the focus is at all tight).
Basically, anything that involves a huge energy diffe

Re:OK, so what's the catch?

[Jeremi]

I want pictures of such said batteries.

Maybe you could just use the excess energy to pump water uphill, and then let it run back downhill through a dam during the night.

Re:OK, so what's the catch?

[Dun Malg]

Yeah, but an earth-fill damn can never power a car, hydrogen can.

RTF post I wrote: "The only real advantage to hydrogen is that it burns very cleanly, in theory making it an ideal vehicle fuel." Also, you may have noticed that we're not talking about hydrogen's suitablility as a vehicle fuel, we're talking about how SCE is going to store solar energy for nighttime use. Get with the program. Read what people are writing so you can actually follow the conversation.

Re:OK, so what's the catch?

[evilviper]

My VW Vanagon has a hard time climbing hills with 95 horsepower.

Well too bad for you. Meanwhile cars like the original VW Beatle have about 30 horespower (at the wheels), and don't have trouble climbing hills. Your VW might have 95HP PEAK, but at the wheels, especially while climbing, I bet you're getting a fraction of that. Electric cars don't need transmissions, and other horsepower-sapping equipment that ICEs need.

But that's really irrelevant, anyhow. The parent didn't even suggest that solar panels

Pseudoscience?

[rdwald]

Stirling engines seem legitimate enough, but the linked site [freeenergynews.com] describing them seems somewhat crack-potish. They promote cold fusion [freeenergynews.com] and zero point energy [freeenergynews.com], as well as a number of "alternative energy sources" I've never even heard of. There's also a page trying to disprove the Peak Oil [freeenergynews.com] theory, which should be real popular with the Slashdot crowd. Anyway, I sometimes wish that /. nerds had a greater understanding of the pure sciences, rather than just software engineering. Oh well.

Re:Pseudoscience?

[Thanatopsis]

Zero Point Energy? Why Zero Point Modules are what power the lost city of Atlantis in Stargate Atlantis. They are widely recognized as on the most powerful energy sources in television science fiction.

Re:Pseudoscience?

[srleffler]

To be fair, despite its popularity with the wackos, the idea that oil may not come from decaying biological matter after all does have some scientific merit. It's still (AFAIK) a controversial hypothesis, but not a completely baseless one.

We used to think that all 'organic' compounds were organic in origin. We were wrong. 'Organic' compounds have been observed in space and on other planets. It's not a huge stretch (especially given other evidence) to wonder if these vast pools of hydrocarbons under the Ea

Re:Pseudoscience?

[Dun Malg]

What I've understood from geologists is, is that even if it is true, this source doesn't produce all that much oil per year.

Sure, if all you do is try to collect it near the surface like we do now. All you have to do is drill deeper to find more. The Russians are currently pumping oil out of wells 8 miles deep. The stuff we're pumping out at the top is only that little bit that seeps into easily reachable pockets.

Secondly, you find remains of plants in oil, which almost makes you wonder how they got th

Solar...

[Junior J. Junior III]

In related news, ants in a 4500 acre area have all mysteriously vanished.

New Energy Laws?

[seven of five]

Now that Bush signed the 'Energy Bill' we have this gigantic solar project, underwritten by a big utility. Coincidence?

Re:New Energy Laws?

[lax-goalie]

>Coincidence? Ummm, yes.

Hey, we're almost in business...

[Manchot]

All we need now is 1.42 more of these things!

Environmentally Sound

[NitsujTPU]

at PESN. With 20 years of in-the-field fine-tuning, Stirling Energy Systems is now ready to go big -- real big. They signed a purchase agreement Tuesday with Southern California Edison (SEC), to install a 20,000 dish array that will cover 4,500 acres and will be capable of generating 500 megawatts of electricity -- more than all other U.S. solar projects combined -- making this the largest solar installation in the world.

Thank goodness there will be no environmental impact!

I wonder how large a nuclear

1 37' reflector makes 25KW ?

[dickens]

The article said a 1MW pilot used 40 37' reflectors. That sounds ok to me. I wonder how much each one costs to buy and maintain.

So in the hot climate of the American South, these thing ought to start popping up on rooftops. Building a few tens of thousands of the things for Edison ought to help them smooth out the manufacturing process. How many 25KW units will you need to air condition a 100,000 sq. ft building ?

Making power only during the day isn't so bad since the air conditioning load in buildings

Reality check

[Animats]

Reality is that they've installed six dishes at Sandia, with a peak output of 150KW. Southern California Edison is talking about installing 40 dishes, with a peak output of 1MW. If those work, maybe the 20,000 dish gigawatt facility might happen.

There have already been two big solar projects in Southern California Edison territory, called Solar One and Solar Two. Both were so expensive to operate that they couldn't even cover their operating costs, let alone their construction costs.

Re:Reality check

[WOV]

I think we agree more than disagree. I think the power towers *are* a dead end - the working fluid is heinous to handle, the plant itself is much more vulnerable to single points of catastrophic failure, it brins NIMBYs the dishes don't, and it's not that suspectible to manufacturing economies of scale. I think it's a bad application of big power plant thinking to a diffuse and distributed resource.

Where I will argue with you is that the economic failure (and failure they were) of a hundred=plus kW power

Cooling?

[Michael Woodhams]

The pictures have huge dishes to collect heat, but what about the other end? How do they keep the cool part of the cycle cool?

I was expecting to see the engine behind the dish (receiving light via a secondary mirror) and big radiator fins attached to the engine in the shadow of the dish.

Animation

[mrogers]

For those like me who haven't heard of Stirling engines before, there are some nice animations here [keveney.com] and here [keveney.com].

Incidentally, the 37-foot diameter units described in the article generate 25 kW each - I wonder if they'd be suitable for domestic use?

no silicon is a good thing

[grqb]

Any solar technology that doesn't use silicon is definitely a good thing these days. The Photovoltaic industry is the "poor cousin of the microchip industry [thewatt.com]", and so microchips get all the good silicon while PV gets the leftover crap that Intel et al. don't want. For this reason, and a general shortage of poly-silicon [thewatt.com], there is a huge shortage of PV panels all over the world. Germany and Japan gobble up all they can [thewatt.com] and at a fair price too, leaving hardly anything for the rest of the world.

It's good to see the Stirling engine being used like this because in my opinion, the PV industry has some serious problems, especially if they have to compete with the Slashdot crowd for silicon!

Re:no silicon is a good thing

[British]

If people were willing to pay enough $, the panels would be flying out of the factories. But using silicon for LCD screens is a whole lot more profitable.

I blame Mad Mike(West Coast Customs) on "Pimp My Ride". He insists on putting as LCD panels as possible into old, broken down cars.

I think he once put a downward facing LCD panel in an undercarriage for one customer, so he can watch tv while working on a car.

Re:4500 acres?

[uberdave]

Counting or not counting the uranium mines, heavy water refineries, and spent fuel storage facilities?

Re:4500 acres?

[RandUser]

Touche. Which is why I think we should be focusing research and energy on nuclear fuel reuse [waaaay unexploited in the US] and disposal techniques.

Re:4500 acres?

[srleffler]

The problem with radioactive waste storage is not the shielding, it's how to prevent groundwater over hundreds or thousands of years from getting into the storage facility and dissolving/carrying off radioactive material into the water table. This is the big concern holding back the real planned waste storage facility, which is in a deep, dry hole in the middle of nowhere. They need to prove first that whatever they put there will stay put for tens or hundreds of thousands of years.

Re:Failure of the Bush administration

[DAldredge]

This is taking place in California...

Signed Tuesday, the 20-year power purchase agreement, which is subject to California Public Utilities Commission approval, calls for development of a 500-megawatt (MW) solar project 70 miles northeast of Los Angeles using innovative Stirling dish technology. The agreement includes an option to expand the project to 850 MW. Initially, Stirling would build a one-MW test facility using 40 of the company's 37-foot-diameter dish assemblies. Subsequently, a 20,000-dish arra

Uh... right?

[mcc]

Once again, other countries are moving ahead, acquiring tomorrow's technology.

Foreign countries like California?

I mean now that you mention it I guess it is, but...

Re:Failure of the Bush administration

[thrillseeker]

This is just one of many ways that the Bush Presidency is failing us all.

Yawn ...

Re:Failure of the Bush administration

[MyLongNickName]

Ummmmm. Stirling is located in Arizona, right? I may have graduated public school, but I am pretty sure this is in the U.S. somewhere.... right above Maine.

PARENT IS TROLL

[magarity]

Modders: parent is yammering about other countries moving ahead and buying this technology from other countries while it's AN ARTICLE ABOUT CALIFORNIA!

Re:Failure of the Bush administration

[geekee]

" Once again, other countries are moving ahead, acquiring tomorrow's technology. Meanwhile, the US remains more dependent than ever on Big Oil.
"

I didn't know California had seceded from the Union. Certainly plenty of people there that would like to.

Re:Failure of the Bush administration

[tehdaemon]

"Ah.. but, in its preamble, the Constitution explicitly declares that one of the its primary purposes is to 'promote the general Welfare'.

The Preamble -

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Let me cut out the unnecessary

Re:Increase efficiency with fresnel lense

[Ironsides]

Just spit balling but couldn't fresnel lense technology (Giant Fresnel Lense) be used to increase efficieny, or reduce the size of the dish. Then use fly wheel technology to store excess energy for night time use.

The fresnel lens could reduce the surface area of the mirrors, but not of the over all area. The amount of light energy from 1 acre is the same whether you condense it using a lense or a mirror. In addition, with the extra complexity and cost of the lens, you might as well just stick with a mi

Re:No way, San Jose

[Smidge204]

The rest of the equipment: heat collector at the focus, flexible piping, insulation, pipes, evaporators, heat sinks, pumps, working fluid, turbines, gears, cogs, lubricants, generators, buildings, staff, land

What do you need all that stuff for?

With the exception of land (which you will need a lot of but it's all desert and not suited for much else) and a minimal staff, none of that junk is required.

The Stirling cycle runs at 10% efficiency. { Note: most Stirling engines are about 5x less efficient that this