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Molten Salt-Based Solar Power Plant
rcastro0 writes "Hamilton Sundstrand, a division of United Technologies, announced today that it will start to commercialize a new type of solar power plant. A new company called SolarReserve will be created to provide heat-resistant pumps and other equipment, as well as the expertise in handling and storing salt that has been heated to more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. According to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla 'Three percent of the land area of Morocco could support all of the electricity for Western Europe.' Molten Salt storage is already used in Nevada's Solar One power plant. Is this the post-hydrocarbon world finally knocking?"
There are a number of companies doing this. One is looking to work in conjunction with POwer plants esp Nukes. The waste heat can actually kick the salts up a bit, and then solar pushes is that much higher. The nice thing is that this can be used on really hot days as a means of cooling off the waste heat from the nuke prior to putting in streams. Where this might get really interesting is to combine with geo-thermal power. The same sets of solar concentrators can be used to kick up heated water/steam from the ground and make the generators more efficient. During the daytime, the generators can run at full tilt, while at night, when it is just geo-thermal, then generators run at less efficient speeds.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The concept of storing the energy as thermal is fine, but reducing the amount of energy swaps is going to be the more efficient way to use the power. The efficiency that they can store energy and re-convert it is going to determine how low a cheap power block can sell for.
Anyway, just a crazy rant.. enjoy,
Storm
Well, according to the article it is being used and will be used more in the future. The issue is that it takes time, money and a lot of land (3% of Morocco may seem small (446,300 km^2 *
It may take Hamilton Sundstrand and others quite a few years to ramp up production to the point where they can consider converting even 100 km^2 of land over to solar energy production.
the growth in cynicism and rebellion has not been without cause
A commonly employed tactic, you have just narrowed your scope such that you can criticize nuclear energy. 2. Not a problem. More people would understand this if fear hadn't reigned and nuclear research didn't take a nose dive decades ago. 3. Also not an imaginary problem. Proper (well documented) reactor design will eliminate this concern. IT would be a done deal if we maintained the nuke program from the 60s through today. Even existing tech would allow us to burn other elements, which are more plentiful than uranium. On second thought, why aren't you concerned with Hubbert's Peak for the sun or the universe? The timescales of these peaks are not really of a concern same as those for uranium, unless you really think you can plan for 100+ generations out. 4. There is enough unused "waste" sitting around for thousands of years. Plenty hiding around down under too. 5. Actually the lack of off-peak energy is a massive problem, mostly for economic reasons. IT is probably the single largest cost barrier for both wind and solar, which typically enjoy moderate to peak output less than 20% of the time. In other words, to reach cost parity with coal they actually need to be 5 times cheaper. 6. Ultimately it doesn't matter? Um, yes of course if you are so narrowly focused that you don't consider things like economies and social welfare. Why isn't nuclear renewable? Just as renewable as our sun if you ask me. p.s. pv isn't carbon neutral either p.s.s. Life is destructive. take it or leave it. Don't kid yourself. Nuclear energy is at least as good an option as solar or wind for decades. At least until fancy PV arrives at 100s of GW of annual production. But then again theres no difference between fear of nuclear energy and whatever other boogieman is out there.
"Disposal" isn't as big a problem as it's made out to be; reprocessing reduces the amount of waste produced tremendously, and storing a little waste for a time is a whole lot better than *not* storing it and dumping it into the atmosphere, as we're doing with coal.
The French, who have come the farthest in reprocessing, are finding out it's not as simple to reprocess as many would have you believe. IEEE's magazine "Spectrum" has a good article on this: "Nuclear Wasteland". However another /.er brought up the Candu reactor in Canada a few weeks ago. I don't know much about it so I can't say whether there are any problems with the design or waste, or whether its economically feasible. However nuclear power isn't really needed, not in the US. The Rocky Mountains alone contain enough potential wind power to supply the 48 continuous states with electricity. Add OR, CA, AZ, NM, and Texas along with some offshore sites from Cape Cod to the Mid Atlantic and much more can be generated by wind. Also many megawatts of potential power goes up smoke stacks daily as Waste Heat. Combining wind, solar power, cogeneration or waste heat recovery and conservation negates the need for nuclear power. The alternative power sources, both listed above and others, have a distinct advantage over nuclear power, while it can take years and years for a nuclear power plant to be constructed and brought online, these others can be added immediately. Wind generators and solar PVs can be made from raw material and brought online in months, and can be sited closer to many of the placed where the energy is needed. Besides PVs on roofs a farmer in the Adirondack Mountains in New York can provide electricity to NYC. The farmer would then have a second source of income.
FalconShould there be a Law?
Thanks for your input. Some quick googling suggests that the current state-of-the-art hydrogen conversion is approaching 75% efficiency (See http://www.qsinano.com/white_papers/2006_09_15.pdf, note this is lab efficiency, not truly applied yet). Assuming that the efficiency continues to improve, I would expect that that value will rise notably by 2020 and beyond. When you factor in the NG used, transmission losses, etc., compressed air is only about 80% efficient (see post 101 of the SciAm discussion), so it would seem that hydrogen might be feasible as a replacement in the not terribly distant future.
Since there would also be lost efficiency going the other way (hydrogen > electricity), it probably isn't a very good sole storage solution, but it would seem to be a good solution to burn hydrogen in place of the NG. That would obviously result in further reduced efficiency, but would remove any Co2 from the equation. I'm not a chemist, physicist, or really any other -ist, but it seems like there is at least some potential there.