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Solar Power Put to Good Use

Posted by Zonk on from the better-than-frying-ants dept.

Current Shunts writes "Teams from all over the U.S. and Canada will be competing this summer over a 2,500 mile course from Austin, Texas in the United States to Calgary Alberta Canada for the 2005 North American Solar Challenge. The purpose of this event is to promote renewable energy technologies, integrate science and engineering disciplines, and give competitors an opportunity to showcase their technical and creative abilities." At the same time, zestyalbino writes "Construction on the world's largest solar tower [RMIT] may begin next year in Mildura, Australia. In a nutshell, "An ever present large mass of air under an expansive transparent collector (seven kilometres in diameter) is heated by solar radiation (greenhouse effect) providing a continuous flow of hot air to drive electricity generating turbines located around the base of the one-kilometre tall central tower." There's also an article on Wired."

4 of 254 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Yes by jay-be-em · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Well built solar panels can last quite a bit longer than 7 years. Many consumer grade solar panels have 10 year warranties, and many of the older panels made 40 years ago are still in operation.

    --
    "Orthodoxy means not thinking--not needing to think. Orthodoxy is unconsciousness." --Eric Blair
  2. Archimedes and his Burning Mirrors and Heliostats by pflodo · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Archimedes supposedly set fire to the Roman Navy using an arrangement of mirrors.

    And you probably wouldn't want to have this guy as a neighbour, as he used reflected light from 100 mirrors to "cut" the tops off several trees.

  3. ive beem watching the solar tower site for... by distantbody · · Score: 3, Interesting

    many many months now, and i have scanned it thoroughly for construction dates, and its closer to 2~3 years until the design is even finalised, so 1 year sounds pretty optimistic to me. "worlds largest solar tower"? its will also be the worlds first non-prototype solar tower, 1km tall. i'll be travelling down there from Sydney to monitor its progress. -5 Troll modifier, well at least i got my opinion out :P

  4. You kidding? That's small. by Tau+Zero · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Leon O. Billig, in a fact article in _Analog_ titled "Defeating the son of Andrew" (11 years ago this month), proposed convection towers on the order of ten times as tall. I recommend this article to everyone as a mind-stretching exercise.

    --
    Time is Nature's way of keeping everything from happening at once... the bitch.