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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
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.