World's Largest Solar Array to use Stirling Engine 720
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
"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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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].
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
A couple of good reasons... (Score:5, Interesting)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
The atmosphere is about 18 ppm neon. That's one resource that's not going to run out.
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
Do you even know *any* next-gen reactor designs besides PBMRs?
The standard anti-nuclear answer. How smart! (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Funny)
Many times, I've asked the same question, when reading posts on slashdot...
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Good (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
ding ding ding Ding Ding DING DING DING Diing diiing diiiing.....
Darn, missed it.
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 (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good (Score:2)
$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 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Good (Score:4, Insightful)
If the grid runs off clean and safe nuclear, cars can run of batteries.
Re:Good (Score:2)
Re:Good (Score:3, Interesting)
Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:2)
We could cover some old 8-foot satellite TV dishes with aluminum foil.
Re:Not surprising (Score:4, Interesting)
Cheap Parabolic Dishes (in a relativesense) (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
Use of solar power should be avoided at all costs. Help promote renewable energy sources instead.
http://nosolar.net/ [nosolar.net]
Mod parent up (Score:2)
Re:Say "no" to Solar (Score:2)
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 (Score:5, Funny)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Conversion Table: Megawatts to Homes (Score:2, Interesting)
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... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Environmental loop... (Score:2, Insightful)
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... (Score:2)
Re:Environmental loop... (Score:2)
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... (Score:5, Insightful)
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... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Environmental loop... (Score:2)
Anyone with a more educated opinion?
Re:Environmental loop... (Score:4, Funny)
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... (Score:2)
Espically given the location suggested for this I doubt it will ever be completed due to environmental protests and lawsuits.
space power on earth! (Score:5, Informative)
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! (Score:2)
Re:space power on earth! (Score:2)
Re:space power on earth! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:space power on earth! (Score:3, Informative)
Colorado voter initiative (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Colorado voter initiative (Score:4, Interesting)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
It sounds a lot smaller when you put it that way.
Re:4500 Acres Sounds Like a Lot (Score:2)
Re:4500 Acres Sounds Like a Lot (Score:3, Insightful)
The Edison URL (Score:4, Informative)
CNAME (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Stirling engines (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Stirling engines (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.kockums.se/Submarines/aipstirling.html [kockums.se]
OK, so what's the catch? (Score:5, Interesting)
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? (Score:2)
Re:OK, so what's the catch? (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine#Probl ems_with_Stirling_engines [wikipedia.org]
Re:OK, so what's the catch? (Score:3, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Informative)
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
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? (Score:3, Informative)
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? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Pseudoscience? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Pseudoscience? (Score:3, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Interesting)
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... (Score:4, Funny)
New Energy Laws? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:New Energy Laws? (Score:2)
Hey, we're almost in business... (Score:3, Funny)
Environmentally Sound (Score:2)
Thank goodness there will be no environmental impact!
I wonder how large a nuclear
1 37' reflector makes 25KW ? (Score:2)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
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? (Score:3, Insightful)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Funny)
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? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:4500 acres? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:4500 acres? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Failure of the Bush administration (Score:2, Informative)
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? (Score:2)
Foreign countries like California?
I mean now that you mention it I guess it is, but...
Re:Failure of the Bush administration (Score:2)
Yawn ...
Re:Failure of the Bush administration (Score:3, Funny)
PARENT IS TROLL (Score:2)
Re:Failure of the Bush administration (Score:2)
"
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 (Score:3, Interesting)
The Preamble -
Let me cut out the unnecessary
Re:Increase efficiency with fresnel lense (Score:3, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
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