Slashdot Mirror
Thermal Solar Plant To Be Erected In Australia
connect4 writes: "An article from the bulletin explaining a plan to erect a 1km high solar convection wind turbine in outback Victoria - the worlds tallest construction. Projected output per tower: 200MW. Cost to build: A$670m. Footprint of tower: 20sq km
."
It's not like there's a lack of space to put these things. I mean, if you turned Quazi into one large solar panel, Australia would finally be able to gold-plate its mighty koalas! Gold Koalas for all!
God, I gotta stop with this Foster's.
...I always get excited (no corellation with the above *erect* comments) when people actually DO stuff with solar power. I can't wait to see this structure if they go ahead with it.
but 200MW isn't very much electricity. We should be able to scale this thing up with minimal cost and get more power out of it. For that much money, they could pay the aussie citizens to run on treadmills to produce more power :)
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
I mean.. like.. duh!
-- The ballad of arrivederci
yes, retarded indeed...
So can someone explain why this needs to be 1km tall? The windmills are at 40m, so what's the remaining 960m doing? is it just to stabilize the column up to colder air, or what?
This is a self-referential sig
Nice ...
I'm glad I followed that link at work.
This sounds very impressive. It's great to hear that there is still plenty of active development in seeking out new power-sources. The tower sounds absolutely incredible:
If it's built it will surely be a wonder of the modern world - I'd certainly love to see it! A prime example of the better elements of what mankind is capable of...
Also there is always an environmental issue, even in solar power it is common for there to be MORE damage to the environment at first - in this case they expect to have countered that, and be "in the black" environmentally after only 2 1/2 years!
-- Pete.
Monochrome - Probably the UK's largest internet BBS
... you couldn't really build a bigger magnet for future terrorist in the Osama mould. Granted
Australia isn't exactly top of the fanatics hit list at the moment but if that changes in the
future I can see this tower becoming literally the biggest security headache in the world.
Projected output per tower: 200MW. Cost to build: A$670m. Footprint of tower: 20sq km. Look on the face of Trolls when they see "erect" in a /. headline: Priceless.
---
Siggy, siggy, siggy, can't you see? Sometimes your puns just irritate me.
Always let the mouse hover on any link in Slashdot before you click on it. This will display the link's true destination in the browser's status bar, and any goatsex reference will be obvious (unless the prankster space-padded the link as well...).
Note: I said browser, not Internet Exploder. Not sure whether IE is able to give such advance warning.
EnviroMission's site has more information regarding the technology employed, as well as some nice flash animations.
Considering Australia's size and geography, I'm surprise solar power isn't implemented on a wider scale. If only the polititians would get their heads out of their arse, they would realize solar and wind power are the only intelligent, long-term choice. They may bitch about the price, but once these things get to be built in large quantities the price will go down accordingly.
/max
-- It's always darker before it goes pitch black.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/new si d_1699000/1699665.stm/
says that wind energy in Scotland with the help of wave and tidal resources could provide 60GW / 75% of the UK's energy requirements.
slashnik
-
Maintenance costs? I mean, you don't just whack a great big building in the middle of nowhere and expect it to just work for the rest of its life, do you?
-
Expected life span? If it only is good for ten years, it's a bloody expensive way to generate electricity.
-
Effect on the surrounding area? A one kilometer tower is going to cast a pretty damn big shadow.
-
Expected average output? 200 MW peak output is what the article says... that's not the same as 200 MW average.
Don't get me wrong -- I reckon it's a rather neat idea. But the article doesn't give the whole story by any means.$670 million australian isn't that much money.
Currently its $348 million US, which is about the TOC of a nuclear reactor of the same capacity
Throw in credits from carbon trading, valuable research into the technology, bragging rights and the ability
to wean australia's fossil fuel dependant economy off foreign oil (australia is the world's worst polluter per captia) this is a very very good deal. Go Aussie!
This stuff could be VERY useful in near-tropical regions. like India for example, the temperature difference (in the more extreme parts ~25N) goes from 40deg C (in the daytime) to something like 10-15 at night. So this could also possibly be used to churn out far more power than the aussie counterpart, IF used correctly. This is specifically for regions that have a high temperature during day/night times, and a nice dry climate. Coastal regions wouldnt be of so much use for the simple reason that the temp. gradient obtained is not so large.
US is now divided as the "Red" and "blue" states. Red States = communist countries. Coincidence? I think not
I think we've lost our nerve for risk, an affliction in which we are probably not alone.
Could you use the large "greenhouse" below to grow something that would not normally be sustainable? I guess it would take a small amount of the energy out, but it might be worth it.
If not, at least plant a forest, so that you have more heat capacity to work with over night when the sun is down.
Yep sure this is better than nukes or coal. But it will probably destroy the natural environment of whatever used to sit underneath the thing. And you need a heck of a lot of them to replace all the coal. A bit like Hydro - it's free electricity, but
you have to dam up and destroy the environment to build the thing.
Can't we just use less electricity? We really don't need anywhere near as much as we use. Street lights? A waste. Neon? Waste. Heating? Need solar passive houses. The list goes on.
"Not sure whether IE is able to give such advance warning."
Yes, it is.
Why? Because all these enviromental generating schemes do is prevent the building of NEW fossil
fuel stations. What never happens is the replacement of a fossil fuel power station with
a renewable energy one. We need to reduce our overall power consumption. How many of you leave
your PC switched on for no reason other than you can't be bothered to wait 1 min for it to boot
when you want to use it again in 3 hours time?
UNtil peoples free for all attitude to energy consumption changes all we'll be doing is buying
ourselves a little bit more time but the end result of massive climate change will still occur.
Building more nuclear plants would help but the liberal right-on lobby would have a apoplectic fit
if anyone suggested that because in their not-too-bright minds they do a simplistic link between nuclear power and nuclear war so hence its verbotten.
It's not huge, the real estate agent said, but it's a great location. You'll love the view, he said.
Guess who moved next door a week later?
Free Java games for your phone: Tontie, Sokoban
This is gonna get me flamed to a well done crisp, but.....
We (I.T. type people and Slashdot readers/posters) are very quick to point the finger at our stupid users when they click on attachments proclaiming their love ;)
However, the second someone posts a link about open source, everyone jumps on it without a quick check to see what it really is.
Interesting.......
Learn to Improvise
I don't normally post OT stuff but try reading some international news sometimes.
To quote from that URL:
The quote by an energy industry manager, "It won't work", is typical of the process:
Usually, that is the end of things for revolutionary technologies... I hope it won't be in this case.
-- H. Wilker
i'll neva understand why people use /. as an anonymous place to put their rants.
find a forum dammit.
keep the offtopic comments to yourself.
the environmental damage of a 1km high, football ground wide shadow would be enormous, even in the most desolate of places.
especially with cold blooded animals etc, which there are plenty of in this area.
the question is, are a few snakes and lizards worth the technological advances and power created by such a device. Such a difficult moral question.
And people have suggested building solar power up higher in the sky, where there is greater raditation from the sun. Imagine the size of the shadow of a basketball if placed on the rim of earths inner atmosphere.
um, wtf?! i just finished year 12 geography studies, in australia btw (because the air is different up there in america hey? :) and i was taught that for every 1000m in altitude, there is a 6C change in tempature. go figure
It's not an optical illusion, it just looks like one!
Nah... Australia is hardly on the terrorist hit list... and nothing like that could ever be built here in America (at least, not for quite a while) with all the congressmen that are owned by the fossil fuel industry.
Remember kids: While hard work may pay off in the long run, laziness always pays off now.
So, 200MWatts(peak)/$670M AU = $3.35/Watt.
Converting that to USD, I get $1.72US per Watt of generating capacity.
Of course, that's the *peak* figure, and the article didn't say much about what the expected *average* power would be.
Anyhow, add to that the benefit of a 1Km platform for an antenna platform, plus the tourist draw of an observation deck, and it sure sounds like a winner to me.
Now, if they would just start building these all over the Mojave...
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Just for those who didn't read the text:
They had a similar thing in Spain (150 km south of Madrid) between 1982 and 1989. It had had some funding problems and for that reason was built on the cheap. As a consequence it collapsed in 1989 in a storm. It had a capacity of 50KW.
The idea is that:
- you have a big greenhouse that collects the sun and generates hot air.
- you send that air into a very high chimney because the air at a high altitude is colder so you can get more energy
- closed water basins in the greenhouses store the heat for the night so that you can generate electricity at night too
The biggest problem seems to me that the technology has not been tested very much. Scaling from 50KW to 200MW is quite a big step. And the quoted prices seem to have a lot of variation depending on the article that you read.
> list
Australian troops are on the ground with American troops.
This is a really nice project. But it only makes sense if it is combined with agriculture or other forms of solar power generation.
The carnot efficiency is defined as e=(T1-T0)/T1. If we assume T1=20C=293K, T0=0C=273K, the maximum thermodynamic efficiency is 20/293=0.068=7%. And this is the theoretical maximum. So it would be more reasonable to expect something like 4% for the total efficiency.
On the plus side, this design comes with built-in energy storage for the night, it can be used for agriculture, and it might be possible to increase its efficiency by placing photovoltaic cells in the collector area.
If you consider that this thing will be a huge tourist attraction, building it will definitely be worth it.
Private property is the central institution of a free society (David Friedman)
Reminds me of This article I read a while ago.
-- My hovercraft is full of eels.
Did you just say lottery tickets?
why on land ? Just make it a drifter. Then you have all the water you need, and you don't have to pump up the lost H2O that gets damped out...
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
It would be easier to build a machine that collects and processes the sweat of the nervous investors on this project...
------
Let me give you the lowdown
*Remember the broome tidal power station (north WA), it was probably also economically viable but the state gov seemed against it, even though federal gov seemed to support it (both libs)
*Having said that, wouldn't the outback SA, NT or WA be a better location (if you can co-exist with native title or find some free hold). Vic is kinda expensive real estate compared to central australia.
*We've got enough empty desert for a ton of these.
*I wonder how a cost camparison would compare if this was augmented with geothermal energy, while we're not NZ, areas like MT Isa have a steep geo thermal gradient. I think natural rock temperature about 1.5 km deep at Mt Isa is about 50 to 60 degrees celcius
*hey a chimmney taller than Mt Isa
*finally - i guess photocells would end up more economicly practical anyway.
This thing would seem to be a grand-scale lightning rod. It'd be nice to see some analysis on how well it'd stand up to being hit by some serious energy...
Act now on this exclusive offer from IveGotEnergy.com!
Haven't you ever wondered why energy, which is so small it can travel through the tiniest wire, is created in huge, expensive power-plants? The power companies would like you to believe that it's because it requires expensive equipment and long years of training. But they're WRONG!
Working together, scientists in Holland and Bulgaria have come up with an enormous breakthrough in energy production. Using things you can find around the house you too can have your own 1000MW Power Plant! That's enough power to light all of Manhatten. Think of how envious your neighbors will be.
The best part is, once you've set up the device, you never have to think about it again. It'll work forever and ever without any maintenance at all.
And, if that's not appealing to you...
Me and my friends at IveGotEnergy.com are having a slumber party and YOU'RE INVITED! So come see hot chicks naked
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
Has anyone looked at the possible effects this would have on local weather patterns?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Does this remind anyone of the tower of babyl?
The article says nothing about the possible impact this will have on rain patterns in the area.
I've read that airliner jet streams appear to change weather patterns in the US, but jet streams seem minor compaired to 20 square kilometers worth of heat creating a permanent cloud in one location.
Won't this draw humidity that would otherwise fall in other nearby areas?
I prefer this article to show how important this particular "terrorist's" words are to Australia.
Anyone who requires their Jewish landlady to get them out of bed and drive them to pilot school, so they can then nick off to the knocking shop might be regarding as a wannabe, like the reporters and editors who actually started reporting this crap in Australia.
OT!? but AC started it.
Man, it's because the air is heated more than normal air by the greenhouse effect in the enclosure part on the bottom.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Some people calculated that 7km^2 of Solar panels in the Sahara would provide enough electricity for the whole of mankind.. So why waste space in australia when you could build something soo much more useful :)
The temperature differential depends on whether the air is saturated with water or not. Saturated air is much harder to cool. I imagine that the air there would be far from saturation, so a differential of 10C pr. 1km sounds about right.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
I would be highly skeptical of a project like this. It has a huge initial price tag, even if EVERYTHING goes according to plan. What if it doesn't go according to plan? With it so high up, maintenance costs could be extraordinary if anything went wrong. This is a zero emissions plant, but it won't actually have lower emissions than a comparable fossil fuel powerplant until TWO AND A HALF YEARS later because of all the CO2 emissions created during construction?!?!? What would the lifetime of this project be?
Spending a sizable fraction of a billion dollars to reduce co2 emissions by what appears to be an inconsequential amount doesn't appear to me to be a brilliant idea. Maybe it has some value as a test example, but if so, WHY does it have to be that big and cost near half a billion dollars.
I'm not an Australian taxpayer, so I don't care if you go ahead and do it, but if I were, I would be highly skeptical...
The state of Victoria needs about 7600MW of power. The proposed convection tower's *peak* output is 200MW. For comparison, the two gas power stations I have data on (I work for an energy company here in the UK) are 600MW and 850MW. It seems like the tower is playing in the right ballpark, although it really is completely dependent on its mean output, not its peak.
BTW, the gas power stations produce power extremely close to their capacity, 24 hours a day. Power is expensive to store, so you really try and avoid overproduction. If the tower's output varies wildly over a 24-hour period, or even seasonally, this will be a disadvantage.
Still, it's a pretty damn cool idea - a zero emissions power station with no requirements for supply lines, *and* it's already been prototyped in Manzanares. I wonder if a *smaller* tower might be a better idea (cheaper, less of an eyesore), using the principles of micropower to build a robust, distributed network of smaller-scale power stations, rather than fewer, giant power stations.
Damn, distributed network? This is sounding like the internet power grid...
Mildly offtopic.. but
;)
BP Amoco have recently started to introduce "green" petrol (gas) stations around the UK..
In a way to make them "green", they've adopted the idea of installing 50ft high wind powered generators. Sounds great.. but the problem is, (well, at my local branch), they've put three of these huge towers right next to the highway - on a rather sharp bend.
Yes, not the best of ideas.
I think the rate of car crashes has gone up 10 fold since they installed these distractions. I wonder how long it will be before they take them down.
Could this possibly mean that the "green" planning department don't actually have a clue on anything other than how to save power?.. I'm quite sure the insurance companies are going to throw up a stink about the distraction element..
"Never let the truth get in the way of a good story..."
Wouldn't this create the world's largest sundial?
I can see it now: "it's not an eclipse - it is tea-time mate".
Wouldn't need no stinkin' satellite.
In order to make any sense at all, electricity has to be generated for less than 5 cents per kilowatt hour. (Your electric co charges 10-15 cents per kWH, and the difference is the cost of getting it to you.) At a construction cost of $670 M, the interest alone (at 10% per year, in the ballpark for a risky project like this) comes to $7,667 per hour. At 200 MW, and assuming no downtime and 100% of rated capacity (neither of which is likely), that comes to 3.8 cents per kWH, JUST FOR INTEREST ALONE! Add in any sort of operating costs, and it just doesn't look all that feasible to me.
Having a power plant that mostly generates power during the times when people are awake and using more power is a good idea, overall. Having a number of different power plants of different designs that generate power in different ways is an even better one.
In the US those vested interests are the ones that pay the campaign expenses of our politicians, and in so doing keep the rest of us in economic enslavement. Oil and auto manufacturers fight public transportation in congress. The insurance industry always kills reasonable medical system legislation (which is why the US is now rated number 34 relative to other countries in health care). The RIAA buys self interested legislation to help squeeze more money out of music customers . . . the root cause of all this sleaze is clearly political bribery through "campaign contributions" but Joe Sixpack can't even begin to understand this. There are ten times the Joe Sixpacks than intelligent voters, so we are all most thoroughly fucked.
A typical steam generated unit in Australia generates only 350MW. Power stations obviously have a few of these, each with their own boiler, turbine and half of a cooling tower.
It may be cheaper to build a few of these solar units than one enormous thing that can pump out 1GW.
One of the big objections was to the eyesore of a 1 km tower. Also it would seem a lot of expense and risk is associated with such a tall tower.
So does it have to be vertical?
Just find a nice mountain that is snow covered year round and that lives next to a desert. (Death Valley anyone?). Build an insulated chimney from the base of the mountain to the top, following the terrain. Having it lay on the ground will make it a heck of a lot cheaper, easier to maintain, it won't fall over, and it won't be an such an eyesore.
Also a 20km base is a lot of real estate. A green house is very good from a reliability and fuels stand point. But, could you use other heat sources? How about rotting compost or geothermal?
This system would do well in Iceland. Plenty of hot springs and plenty of mountains
Why build a permanent tower?
I've been thinking about this for a while-- for both power generation and city-wide air conditioning-- (though there are obvious dangers and complications.
Use a cloth tunnel that is raised by dirigibles as the chimney. Install the generators at the base.
The cloth chimney would presumably be cheaper-- although obviously less durable. But it would open the possiblilit for chimneys miles long.
I've also though that a kite at the end of the chimney (buffetted by the chimney's exhaust) could suppport the entire structure.
A light transparent, IR opaque chimney could increase the heat inside the chimney itself-- regardless of the area theat it draws from.
What is the advantage of having the generators off the ground? As long as the air flows through does it make a difference?
Another alternative would be ground based tunnels.
Erect an arched greenhouse-- and make it several hundred kilometers long-- run it up the side of a mountain. Instantly, LA could have cool ocean breezes, no temperature inversions and the American West would receive more rainfall (and smog).
But then-- what would happen to the rest of the world?
someone posted about the consequences of lightning strikes... How about not STORING the electricity from the lighting , but rather use it to run thought the water supplies and create...
hydrogen ! ? !
there we go again ! fuel cells !
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
Please read up on umbra and penumbra. Suffice it to say a basketball WILL NOT make a shadow larger then itself (if that). Hell even the moon casts only a shadow the size of itself during an eclipse. The direct sunlight will be affected but because of the size of the sun there is a heck of a lot of light that comes in "from the side".
'Education and religion are two things not regulated by supply and demand. The less of either the people have, the less they want.
- [Charlotte Observer, 1897]'
South Africans are always quick to point out that not everything revolves around the Aussies.
See for example this 1998 article.
"...Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!"
How much coal do you have to burn to make the glass for this thing?
The FAQ on the EnviroMission pages indicates that the goal is to have the temp in the chimney 35C warmer (!) than the natural environment.
So, assuming that the avg temp in Australia is something on the order of 90F, wouldn't this make the temp of the air in the pipe nearly 180 degrees F? Holy smokes.
--
$tar -xvf
Perhaps to draw even more tourists they could create the world's largest sundial.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
if this thing goes bankrupt you at least will
get worlds biggest sun dial.
Also, you all may recall the recent news that British Nuclear Fuels has liabilities of 48,000,000,000 pounds sterling (I think you still come close to doubling that for US dollars). After more than thirty years of operation of nuclear power in the UK the debts are astronomical and still growing.
In the US, of course, the plants can break even by selling weapons materials at a cost calculated to keep them breaking even, which is why you only see nuclear power in countries that have nuclear weapons or aspire to do so.
As for safe and clean, ask someone in the Ukrane about that! Also remember that the grossest mistakes of Russian engineering have been mirrored in the past by corner cutting US entrepenuers (Three Mile Island).
Maybe they could put warning lights on top of it so cows wont' get hurt.
Imagine if they erected a beowulf cluster of these!
Maybe once the Aussies have proven it will work on this scale, we can throw a few up in the American Southwest. The environment is very similar to the Outback. Solar is our salvation. Build this so that the remaining fossil fuels can be used more wisely, and we can stop sucking the teat of foreign oil.
How about using excess (off-peak) power to pump water to an uphill reservoir that also is a heat sink via a floating cover (like a pool cover). Then when needed return the power via hydro-generator and use the heat value of the water also.
With the improvements in superconducting transmission lines this starts to really become a win/win situation. And the areas where these things would be built could really use the economic benefits.
Sig em Duke !
these sorts of structures kill migratory birds by the thousands (millions?) annually when they hit the guy wires. Not sure if the proposed location is in the path of any migration routes, but in some locations, it would be a disaster.
This company is gonna have to raise a whole lot of money to make it happen. The chances of this actually happening do not look good.
Build a giant supercomputer with AMD Athlon processors attach all of the heatsinks to a big pool of water, and run the turbines off of the steam created.
I want my rights back. I was actually using them when our government stole them after 9/11.
Just wait til it's built...
The Al Naphta terrorist movement, headed by George Bribe Laden is already planning to fly one of those into it.
Just replace the heat-sinks on all those overclocked Athlons with 100m PVC pipe towers, mini-turbines, and voila!
Yes, that's a joke. Although... large server farms... hmmm... Or build it over a busy highway intersection? Is automobile exhaust hot enough to be useful? I know cities are noticably warm than the countryside around them (asphalt, mostly, but all those heated buildings do matter a bit...)
how bout painting it all pink and then the tip red. With the white clouds coming out I think this would make a neat effect.
Would it make sense to simply run a giant straw up the side of a good sized mountain? If you could find a good geographic location for it, it seems like it would save a lot on building materials and make it more stable. The trick is to find a suitably high mountain sufficiently close to an empty flat area. For added benefit, just build a much smaller tower at the top.
Hmm. . . At that point, you might want to have the tower double as a TV antenna.
Maybe there would be a problem with heat loss that would make this idea impractical.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
The article mentions a prototype generator that was built at Manzanares in Spain.
There's a picture of a "small" prototype, which is pretty damned impressive.
Actually it is rocket science...
According to the article, by messing with the relative temperature and humidity at ground level and at high altitude, you can create a pressure system that isn't conducive to hurricanes, which would tend to essentially push an incoming hurricane off to the side. Build a line of these along a hurricane-prone coast, the author said, and they'd pay for themselves within a decade just from the cost savings of not having to rebuild after a couple major storms.
I was pretty skeptical, but what little I remember about the principles behind the idea sounds almost identical to what today's article describes, so maybe it wasn't as kooky as it sounded.
Did anyone else read the same Analog article? Please post if you know which issue it was in -- I'd love to go reread it, since I've forgotten most of the technical details at this point.
storms? I'd love to see the lightning rod on the top of this thing. Also the affect of wind sheer. Ah well, just a few things that I was wondering about.
yahoo!
Here's a link to some folks planning on doing exactly this in South Africa. I'm still betting on the aussies.
Nice idea, but it'd be too heavy for dirigibles to lift, I'm sure.
Let's say the tower is 100m in diameter and the cloth weighs 25g / square metre, which is pretty optimistic, I'd say...
that's 2*pi*50 (radius) * 1000 (height) * 0.025..
7853 metric tons.
A cubic meter of hydrogen will lift about 970grams at sea level.
That's pretty heavy.
so (ignoring the height of the tube), that's 8095876 cubic metres of hydrogen required to lift the thing.
That would need a sphere roughly 250m in diameter to hold it up.
Okay, so maybe that's just about possible, but that's only a very optimistic guess.... I've not counted for the fact that the dirigible is going to need to be able to lift itself, that you'd need a hydrogen/helium mix to stop it being dangerous, that the tunnel might be twice as wide, that the cloth might be heavier, and of course that the cloth would be much heavier once it has been rained on...
> plan to erect a 1km high solar convection wind turbine in outback Victoria - the worlds tallest construction.
I think you got your units wrong. Mile-high stadium is 1.6km high and was built in 1948. Sounds like the aussies have some catching up to do...
Seems to me that I read about a similar project planned for someplace in the middle east. A major difference, though, was that they planned on taking cool air from high in the atmosphere and sending it _down_ the chimney rather than warming air at the bottom and sending it _up_ the chimney. Rather than using greenhouses at the bottom to heat the air, they planned to spray a fine mist of water near the top of the tower to further cool the air. Sorry, folks, but I haven't found a reference to this alternate scheme. I wonder if there are any solar tower physicists reading this discussion who'd care to comment on the benefits and drawbacks of each plan?
I can think of a few benefits of the cool air plan:
- cooler, moister air near the base of the tower could make the climate near the tower more comfortable for living, working, and growing food
- positive pressure at the base of the tower discourages entry by small birds and animals, whereas negative air pressure might actually suck them in
On the other hand, the hot air plan:
- doesn't require a large water source nearby, and doesn't rely on pumping water to the top of a very tall tower
- may be able to create a larger temperature differential using greenhouses/solar concentrators than you can get with the evaporation of water
Can we say lightning rod. Why not set it up to harness all of mother natures gifts while we are at it.
Putting the IT in Sh**
Ithink the discrepancy comes from the fact that you lose 6 degrees for every 1000 FEET. 1000 METERS should come up with another 4 degrees or so.
The pinks always want huge centralized generating plants so they can control distribution and price. Me, I want small decentralized generation at the site of use! FREEDOM!
Put solar panels and wind generators on every roof. Use the gird to even things out. The meter will run both ways. Make the system a neural net with no central control. REVOLUTION!
Assumptions:
$670 million in construction costs
no maintanence charges
life of loan is 20 years
life of plant is 20 years
construction is instentanious (no time paying interest with out plant online)
monthly interest payments at 10% (0.0083% per month
No down time and all power used as produced
For 200MW average power output
Total cost incluing interest $1,770,546,502.78
Total output over 20 years 35040000000kW
Cost per kW $0.05
For 100MW average power output
Total cost incluing interest $1,770,546,502.78
Total output over 20 years 17520000000kW
Cost per kW $0.10
This could turn out to be more expensive to produce the energy than traditional sources, but the pollution credits could change thet. Also some one pointed out that this would take two and a half years to get it pollution credits in the black because of what is released during construction. Well I would like to say that building any other type of power plant will produce its own share of construction related pollution.
What I do not understand is this. By green house do they mean glass building filled with plants, or do they mean glass building filled with empty space over dirt. Plants would absorb energy (as they will be turning the sunlight into food) and less energy would be put into the air that needs to be heated. Also wouldn't it be better to build in condensors along the inside of the chimney as "dry" air weighs less (so it moves faster), has a lower latent heat energy (has a greater change in temperature with the same amount of heat), and condensing water gives off heat (the activation energy needed to vaporize water in the first place).
Friendly
Why not build this in the middle of a large city?
The heat island effect in large urban areas can supposedly raise the temperature 4-5 degrees Farenheit. A 1km tall tower would certainly be a landmark for any city that built it, and you'd have the added benefit of not having to transmit the energy far. About 70-80% of a power plants energy is dissipated during distribution, so a one built in a urban area assuming 20-30% dissipation would be the equivalent of about 2 plants built in the countryside.
if you cultivated the greenhouse - wouldn't that use up some of the energy?
stay frosty and alert
I wonder if the destruction of the World Trade Center towers will discourage investors from a project that involves a tall structure?
The reason you might be concerned is weather. Large generating plants operate at much higher effeciency but can still affect the local weather significantly. This would affect the local weather several times as much per kilowatt-hour.
It may be that this plant would be too small or Australia is too big to worry about the weather right now. However, one should remember that no method of generating power is without its environmental effects.
I am also skeptical about this greenhouse. It seems to me that you would need an awfully big greenhouse to provide substantial benefit while you're using it to heat air constantly, and it's going to take energy to maintain it. Ever make a greenhouse in high school? It warms up slowly, even when it is sealed.
Works at night, too. See:
http://magnet.consortia.org.il/ConSolar/Sabin/Z
Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by mere idiocy.
Yep you are right. Must have dumped a few barrels into the yard of the school you went to. Since you obviously have a only a couple of brain cells left.
Troll.
Also, have you factored in gov't perks, the cost to clean up environmental effects, education for the nuclear techs that work there, etc? Or just building the plant itself?
Hate trolls? Troll 'em back...at home!
Of course they don't really dump toxic waste from power-plants in school playgrounds. My point was that they don't always get dumped in the proper place. Alot of crap does get dumped in the wrong place and it does affect people.
Putting toxic waste in a hole--even if it is far away from people--isn't a solution. It can leak, and people in the future may come across it unknowenly. It simple shifts the proplem to a place where it can't be seen so people can ignore it.
Here is a link to the designers of the original plant in Spain. Under "Index - Solar Power Plants" you will find more on both the Solar Chimney and a Dish/Stirling combination.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Um - what does the temperature do around Mildura (where they plan to build this) ???
Today Mildura is ranging from 10 - 30 deg C, in summer it regularly gets above 40 and often much less than 10. You see desserts get extremely cold at night - often below zero because there is nothing to trap the heat.
Of course given that this technology uses the change in temperature at altitude, not the difference between day and night, why are we even talking about this?
Go back and read what I wrote again. I said nothing at all about price per KwH, I only calculated the construction cost per Watt of generating capacity.
If you're going to rant, please be so kind as to address what I actually did say. You might also note, that I did not say anything disparaging about this idea. I'm very much in favor of it.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
You see desserts get extremely cold at night -
Only if you leave them in the freezer. Personally, the only desserts I freeze are ice cream and those yummy McCain freezer cakes. Cake is best refrigerated but many other desserts can be served at room temperature.
The initial cost is comparable with the $600m cost of building a new 200MW brown-coal power station and a drying plant for the coal, which is nearly 70% water by weight. A 200MW black-coal power station in Queensland would cost $440m.
Excuse me, but a solar generator with a PEAK output of 200MW is NOT comparable to a coal-fired plant with a continuous output of 200MW!!! Solar and wind are nice complements to coal and nuclear, but you simply cannot rely on a non-continuous energy source for 100% of your power... unless you have some way of saving that energy for times when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing!
I see the company talks about using black tubes filled with water as a heat collector during the day to radiate at night.
This is an arid area. You don't think they will have problems with animals gettig in and trying to get at the water.
I'd like to see them use solar panels on the floor underneath the glass house, that will Generate a fair amount of energy as will the use of lightning rods at the top of the tower.
What I'd like to see is solar panels on the floor of the design. Lightning rods at the top of the tower and wind generators all along the tower....now THAT would be impressive ;)
1. There have been other vertical turbine wind projects that have failed, one here in my hometown of Champaign-Urbana, Illinois I believe.
2. They only mention the greenhouse portion of the structure in relation to feeding the airflow. Could this be used as a greenhouse for growing produce also? Will it supply its own water from condensation in an arid region. Certainly this would be as nearly a big plus as the energy provided.
Letter To Iran
That was my first thought as well. Plus, the article mentioned a cloud of condensing vapor at the top. How hard would it be to collect some of the water? That could be of very good use in arid areas. It is surely enough water to make the agriculture inside the greenhouse more friendly in the pocket. You wouldn't want to grow rice or anything like that, but wheat or citrus could work.
_damnit_
It's my job to freeze you. -- Logan's Run
If they don't get a Foster's endorsement, they're fools.
"You call it a new way of thinking; I call it regression to ignorance!" -- Operation Ivy
How about a mountain that is a few hundred meters above sea level? Mine shafts? Temperature difference between seawater and air? This sounds like a very expensive excercise to prove a point. How about a Darius wind generator: 30m high, AU$300,000 ,less than 6 month build time, and outputs 25MW in 4 Knot winds. That's 2,233 wind generators for AU$670M and peak of 55,833MW. Maybe these guys have more dollars than sense?
C.Burgess - email:colvinb@airnet.com.au
I understand that heating such a large area of well irrigated land would mean a very very large difference in the relative humidity of the air exiting the stack and the air in the surrounding area. This seems like another source of untapped engergy to me. A few articles have mentioned capturing the water and using it to re-irrigate the fields below, but why not go a step further and condense as much of the water before it reaches the end of the stack, so that it can perhaps fill an area inside the walls of the stack. Then have a turbine at the bottom and generate more electricity, and irrigate the fields further. A lightweight heatsink near the upper area of the stack would probably be able extract large amounts of condensation from the exiting air.
I heard this news 2 months ago.
It is supposed to be built outside Ballarat in Victoria.
Israel was going to build one of these a few years back, but it worked the other way around: instead of a rising column of warm air from a giant greenhouse, they were going to spray a mist of water into the top of a giant tower, causing the air to sink to the bottom of the tower and blow through giant turbines there. This is clearly a better design, as the greenhouse could be used to grow food in the middle of the desert (or even as a habitation -- these could be built in cooler climates as well. Imagine a self-powered resort oasis in Alaska.) It's also nice that the noise and air blast of the giant turbines is 1 KM in the sky instead of at ground level.
Personally, I'd rather see one of these from 20 miles away than have a coal-fired plant there (invisible, but toxic).