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Thermal Solar Plant To Be Erected In Australia

Posted by chrisd on from the hope-there's-a-plan-for-an-elevator dept.

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 ."

33 of 371 comments (clear)

  1. Wonderful! by Pete+(big-pete) · · Score: 3, Informative

    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:

    The lightweight concrete tower will be the diameter of the Melbourne Cricket Ground's playing surface at its base, and will reach a kilometre towards the sky. A vast, gently sloping greenhouse will extend from its base to a radius of 2.5km, funnelling a rising column of hot air through 32 wind turbines about 40m above ground, generating power day and night.

    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
    1. Re:Wonderful! by sql*kitten · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Except, of course, for the permanent existence of a 1 km tall concrete tower occupying 20 sq km of land...

      That bit of Australia is kinda flat anyway. I'm sure the top could be used for other stuff, like comms or even stellar observation, which should work really well with little ambient light pollution, and relatively clean air. It would also be a massive tourist attraction, especially if the greenhouses could be cultivated.

      Plus, you'd be able to see airliners coming from a long way off. Sadly, you gotta think about that whenever you talk about tall structures these days.

    2. Re:Wonderful! by zmooc · · Score: 3, Informative

      Well I don't think it would be very usefull for stellar observation. Probably the air that comes out of the chimney is relatively hot and will distort the light above the tower. But I might be wrong:)

      --
      0x or or snor perron?!
    3. Re:Wonderful! by grytpype · · Score: 3, Funny

      Turbines, dude! Only way to get your props!

      --

      - Have a picture

  2. Re:Why the height? by waimate · · Score: 5, Informative
    It needs the height because there is a 1 C temperature differential for every 100m of altitude, so 1000m = 10 C, which is what creates the 'draw' and makes the whole thing go.

    It's like saying "why have hydro-electric generators at the bottom of a long fall of water.

  3. More info by Max+von+H. · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.
    1. Re:More info by Goonie · · Score: 5, Informative
      This is why not:
      1. The Liberal and National parties, which currently form a coalition federal government, receive much of their funding from mining companies.
      2. The Labor Party, which is the major opposition party and controls most of the state governments around the nation right now, is an offshoot of the union movement. Guess in which industries the union movement is strong, and thus which unions exert considerable clout in the ALP? Yep, that's right, mining and electricity.
      --

      Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
      --Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
    2. Re:More info by Nikau · · Score: 4, Informative
      The Liberal and National parties, which currently form a coalition federal government, receive much of their funding from mining companies.

      That may be, but Australia is bound by the Kyoto protocol to control its emissions:

      But burning more brown coal would compromise Australia's obligation to reduce its greenhouse emissions under the Kyoto protocol, which requires it contain its emissions by 2010 to within an 8% increase of 1990 levels.
      So basically building the tower would help the emissions situation, since building the tower instead of another coal plant (another power plant seems inevitable judging by the article) will be hitting two birds with one stone... New power plant, no extra emissions.

      Also, we have this paragraph to consider as well:

      By 2010, Australia's energy supply companies must purchase 10% of their electricity from renewable sources. The figure is now 8%, most of it from hydro-electric power. Emerging solar technologies are likely to provide much of the 2% increase.
      Building another coal plant doesn't exactly help them reach this goal, now does it?

      The Labor Party, which is the major opposition party and controls most of the state governments around the nation right now, is an offshoot of the union movement. Guess in which industries the union movement is strong, and thus which unions exert considerable clout in the ALP? Yep, that's right, mining and electricity.

      OK, so the mining industry seems to have a chokehold on 80-90% of Australia's government. Whooptee-doo. What's the projected output of the tower? 200MW. According to the article, what's the overall output of Victoria's power plants?

      ...to replace Victoria's current 7672MW generation capacity.
      So... 200MW from a solar tower vs. 7672MW from mostly coal plants, and the mining industry feels threatened? And remember, this is just for Victoria and its vicinity, never mind the rest of Australia.

      I don't think the government or their mining industry friends need to worry. The government wants to build another plant to provide jobs, that's great. But building a solar tower will help Australia meet its other obligations, not to mention other benefits - tourism, potential farming opportunities in the greenhouse... I doubt there will be a sudden rush in the construction of the towers, but it'd be neat to see at least a few...

      --
      There is no escape from The Muffin.
    3. Re:More info by ArsSineArtificio · · Score: 4, Funny

      > Considering Australia's size and geography, I'm surprise solar power isn't implemented on a wider scale.

      Because the sun goes down.

      Kind of a shame they got rid of the British Empire, really.

      --
      All employees must wash hands before seeking equitable relief.
  4. Is this the time for renwable energy by slashnik · · Score: 4, Interesting
    In a similar vein this report on the bbc

    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

    1. Re:Is this the time for renwable energy by Richard+Kirk · · Score: 5, Informative
      The solar chimney is a really neat idea for reasons that do not transfer to wind power.

      All the moving bits are at the bottom (well - within 40M of the bottom). This means that you can get to service them without having to scale the chimney. You can swap out the generators for more efficient ones when they are developed without having to redesign the rest of the scheme.

      There are windmill designs (the Savonius rotor) that have the generator at the bottom, and don't need pointing into the wind, but these are a design compromise between efficieny and servicability. The wind farms in Scotland have a dynamo with a windmill on top of a big stick. I remember the 'Tomorrows World' presenter going up it, and going rather green: the really big ones are pretty scary places to work.

      The chimney can also generate power when it is half-built. It won't be as efficient, but this may allow the building loan to be spread out. Once you have built the chimney, it may then make finiancial sense to expand the greenhouse area. A windmill is either there or it isn't.

      Don't get me wrong - I like windmills, and a solar chimney in the Orkneys simply isn't on. However, the Orkneys windmill is paying because regular electricity was over 4 times the cost on the mainland. However, IMHO, the solar chimney is in a different league to windmills and tidal stations. I do hope it gets built.

  5. Um... what about... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Some questions that need to be considered:

    • 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.
    1. Re:Um... what about... by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 3, Insightful
      You're right about the maintenance costs. This thing will have many turbines that will eventually need replacing. Probably not off-the-shelf parts, either.

      In California, where we put up hundreds of wind generators, a very large fraction of them are idle because they broke and are very expensive to fix. I expect the same problem for this thing. I only wish there were a practical system for generating solar power without moving parts, something you pay for once and use forever. Sigh...

    2. Re:Um... what about... by Ronin+Developer · · Score: 3, Funny

      the Lions and other African animals being released on the new preserve in the Outback? Or, will they be used to protect it? Won't they get sucked up into this thing? I really don't want to see shredded lion and elephant meat spewing out of this thing like a fountain.

    3. Re:Um... what about... by MrResistor · · Score: 3, Informative
      I only wish there were a practical system for generating solar power without moving parts

      They're called solar panels.

      Yes, they wear out, but they really aren't that expensive, especially now that they're being designed as roofing material (both shingles and metal sheet-style). Cost wise there's little advantage currently, installation and maintenance will currently cost you about the same as it would to get the power from the grid. Manufacturing costs for solar cells have steadily gone down, and will continue to do so in the forseeable future, while efficiencies rise. With a moderate storage system there's no worries about short-term power loss (obviously this isn't a great sollution for somewhere that gets a lot of snow). If you happen to be in a location where getting on grid is cheap and easy, you could hook up a phase-matching invertor and sell your excess power to the power company (at least in CA, one of the few benefits of deregulation). If you're in a location where getting on the grid is difficult or expensive, this is the way to go (I lived in such a situation for almost 20 years).

      In an urban or suburban situation it doesn't make much sense from an individual perpective, but a whole neighborhood with solar-cell roofing could produce a fair amount of power. There's no polution, no line-loss, and the only space that's used up isn't good for much else anyway.

      Really, all that's missing is an economic incentive for people to do it. At one time there was a tax credit for installing alternative energy systems (I don't know if it was Federal or State), and GWB's short-sighted energy plan unfortunately doesn't include that. (I applaud him for having an energy plan, I just don't think it's a very good one.)

      The lifecycle for the solar cells is 15-25 years, depending on the specific tech (the same as most standard roofing materials), the invertor you'd want to replace every 10 years (to take advantage of new tech, they generally last longer than that), and the batteries should probably be replaced every 5 years or so (we used deep cycle lead-acid batteries, Lithium or NiMH would probably be a better choice, but I don't know anything about the cost/maintenance issues).

      --
      Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
    4. Re:Um... what about... by Saeger · · Score: 3, Interesting
      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?

      From the article: "The Manzanares plant ran for seven years, with minimal tuning and maintenance, delivering electricity both night and day" -- and that was from a 20 year old prototype. I'd expect the aussies to do much better with current tech, despite the increased scale.

      Effect on the surrounding area? A one kilometer tower is going to cast a pretty damn big shadow.

      Does a bear shit in the woods? If a tower casts a shadow in the middle of the outback, and no one is around to see it, does it really cast a shadow? :)

      Population density in rural Victoria is what? .0001/km? And I don't think the kangaroos are going to complain. (I wonder how fast the shadow of the top of the tower would be moving along the ground? Could make a game of it.)

      Expected average output? 200 MW peak output is what the article says... that's not the same as 200 MW average.

      True. Also, these ugly "solar chimneys" aren't very efficient in terms of land area wasted per MW, when compared to every method of power generation. But then again, the aussies don't exactly have a better use for the land (aboriginals be damned).

      Hmm. Come to think of it, Eco-terrorists might eventually have a field day if too many of these were built.

      One silver lining, though, would be that at least we'd gain some experience building really tall towers, so that when we are finally able to manufacture ultrastrong carbon-based materials in a few years (like diamondoid), we'll have a headstart on building the "space elevators" we'll need to make solar power satellites, and spacedev in general, cost effective.

      --

      --
      Power to the Peaceful
  6. Lets put this into perspective.. by whanau · · Score: 3, Insightful

    $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!

    1. Re:Lets put this into perspective.. by Grond · · Score: 5, Informative

      whanau said:
      "Currently its $348 million US, which is about the TOC of a nuclear reactor of the same capacity."

      US$348 million will buy you a nuclear plant in the 1.5 Gigawatt range. It would cost about $300 million to build a new reactor comparable to the one about 5 miles from my house (Arkansas Nuclear One) which produces a total of 1694MW. Nuclear power is far, far cheaper than solar, wind, hydroelectric, you name it. Now, whether it's better is somewhat open to debate, but it is by far the most efficient way to produce really large amounts of electricity, both in terms of cost and in terms of space (the cooling tower on Unit 2 is big, but it ain't 1km big).

  7. Pretty useful in near-tropical regions by hashinclude · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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
    1. Re:Pretty useful in near-tropical regions by maaaaanis · · Score: 4, Informative

      Check a map of autralia...
      http://www.bom.gov.au/climate/averages/
      Notice the climate, it's got more tropical, near tropical, desert, savanna etc etc than any other country. Better still, it's bigger than india and has less than 1/50th of the population, more available space, if native title issues ever get sorted.
      In central australia there is an average of 11hrs sunlight a day all year which is the most important factor when using a greenhouse.

  8. agricultural tie-in by Barbarian · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:agricultural tie-in by cybercuzco · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The problem with this is water. The place where there putting this is a dry and arid region, for obvious reasons. If youre going to grow stuff in a 25km^2 greenhouse, thats going to need alot of irrigation. They mention in the article that there would be a cloud froming from water condensation at the top of the tower. It would be really interesting to harvest that water for use in the greenhouse. It would take awhile, but as long as you harvest enough water out of the air column, you could potentially make it sustainable. Plants release water, water is harvested by tower, water irrigates plants. Salt buildup would not be as much of a problem, since youre essentially using distilled water for your irrigation purposes. This would be a slow process, since the water input would be coming from condensed humidity in the air. The thing you would have to be most careful about is the fact that you dont want all the water that youve just worked so hard to caputure going back out the chimney because you cant condense it fast enough. It could be done though, very interesting idea.

      --

    2. Re:agricultural tie-in by markmoss · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If youre going to grow stuff in a 25km^2 greenhouse, thats going to need alot of irrigation. It's worse than that (assuming they're planning on placing it in desert regions) -- it's a 5km diameter (19.6 sq km, about 4,800 acres) greenhouse with a high velocity dry wind blowing through it continuously. Normal plant leaves lose a lot of water in those conditions. Cactus wouldn't, but why would Australia need greenhouses to grow cactus. You might recover part of the water from condensation near the top, but if the relative humidity was low to start with, 10 degrees C temperature drop isn't going to condense out nearly as much water as was put in to start with. If the intention is to modify the weather by injecting lots of moisture 1 km up, and the fresh waster is available, a row of these things would do it, besides growing veggies and generating power.

      Or maybe it wouldn't work at all if plants were in it, since the evaporation would cool the input air, and thus you wouldn't get the heat differential driving the chimney. On the other hand, water vapor is lighter than air, so would that maybe offset the cooling effect and keep the chimney going? I don't know how to calculate this...

      Finally, if evaporation is acceptable, you could make sea-coast green-house/towers double as desalinization plants. Run the seawater into ponds in the greenhouse to evaporate, capture part of the condensation in the tower...

    3. Re:agricultural tie-in by nels_tomlinson · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The idea behind the green house must be to produce HOT air, to be swept up the chimney. Lots of lovely green stuff under the greenhouse would tend to cool the air, and would definitely add humidity. The cooling would definitely be bad. As someone else pointed out, there will be a condensation cloud at the top of the chimney. We wouldn't want that to be any bigger than necessary, as the cloud would further cool things, so the humidity might be bad too. By the way, that's a desert. Where is the water going to come from for these hypothetical plants?

      Here's another problem with the ``plant stuff in the greenhouse idea'': you use green houses for plants which can't grow in the cold outside climate. These greenhouse/tower contraptions are going to be most feasible in HOT climates, where these heat-loving plants grow naturally. Finally, the green house will be sucking in cold outside air. The plants near the outer edge might get MORE chilled at night than they would without the greenhouse (though the wind would prevent radiant cooling; this could be a big plus in high deserts).

      Probably the best idea would be to pave underneath the greenhouse, and periodically repaint the pavement black.

      --
      See what I've been reading.
  9. Resistance from vested interests by hwilker · · Score: 3, Insightful
    It looks like the initiators of this project already thought about vested interests. These, rather than technical issues, are most often the biggest obstacles to overcome when trying to establish a totally new technology.

    The quote by an energy industry manager, "It won't work", is typical of the process:

    • At first, technical issues are put forward: "It won't work. If it would work, we would have done it before."
    • Then come economic issues. "It will be too expensive. Nobody will buy it."
    • If that doesn't work, and the project in question looks like it might succeed, political lobby work is started. "If it goes forward, we will fire so-and-so many workers. It must be forbidden."

    Usually, that is the end of things for revolutionary technologies... I hope it won't be in this case.

    --
    -- H. Wilker
  10. Better idea by glowingspleen · · Score: 5, Funny

    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
  11. Weather Patterns by Detritus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Has anyone looked at the possible effects this would have on local weather patterns?

    --
    Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
  12. Build a few units by Mandelbrute · · Score: 3
    but 200MW isn't very much electricity.

    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.

  13. Re:Sahara? by jandrese · · Score: 3, Funny

    Those people were idiots. Solar cells are generally around 12% efficent. On a bright clear day you can expect about 1000 watts per square meter to hit the cell, at 12% efficency that's 120 watts.
    7 km^2 is 7000000 m^2.
    Multiply that by 120 watts and you get 840 megawatts, or about as much power as an average gas plant.
    Of course that doesn't even begin to go into the transmission losses...

    --

    I read the internet for the articles.
  14. temporary tower alternative by Morgoth_Bauglir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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?

  15. Nuclear? Throw away 48 Billion Pounds Sterling by Mandelbrute · · Score: 3, Informative
    Building more nuclear plants would help
    Australia can't affort to build and operate a nuclear plant - they are very expensive.

    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).

  16. Re:No way is this thing feasible by WinPimp2K · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Yeah, but they were also pricing a coal fired plant at $600M, so that would cost (using your numbers) $6,850 per hour in interest costs alone (3.4 cents per kwh). So, in order for the development cost to make this unfeasable, a coal fired plant would have to generate a KWH of electricty on less than 0.4 cents worth of coal. Further, you are not factoring in any dollar value for the tradeable carbon credits a wind powered plant would produce compared to a coal fired plant.


    The person quoted in the article as syaing that it wouldn't work was the guy who wanted to build lots more 1 MWH "conventional" windmills.


    For those who didn't take finance, you need to calculate the "opportunity cost" of spending moneyt on a project as if you were financing it.

    --

    You either believe in rational thought or you don't
  17. Re:Good idea... by Heem · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is actually one of the best idea's ive heard in a while. I mean, sure, all the energy combined from the treadmills, bikes and rowing machines at a large sized gym would probably only be enough power to power up the computer at the front desk of that gym, but hell, how cool would that be?

    --
    Don't Tread on Me