Slashdot Mirror
World's First Molten-Salt Solar Plant Opens
An anonymous reader writes "Sicily has just announced the opening of the world's first concentrated solar power (CSP) facility that uses molten salt as a heat collection medium. Since molten salt is able to reach very high temperatures (over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit) and can hold more heat than the synthetic oil used in other CSP plants, the plant is able to continue to produce electricity long after the sun has gone down. The Archimede plant has a capacity of 5 megawatts with a field of 30,000 square meters of mirrors and more than 3 miles of heat collecting piping for the molten salt. The cost for this initial plant was around 60 million Euros."
Fuck me raw. SERIOUSLY! Will someone FUCK ME RAW?
I bet the power those things generate will be too cheap to meter, right?
Yes. You could use any waste heat after the generation process to convert salt water to steam, extract the salt and sell it, and condense the steam back to water and have fresh water. Using the salt from the process might be possible, but more importantly you're desalinating water using the sun instead of diesel generators or natural gas turbines.
Gas-fired pottery kilns can exceed 1400 Celsius, although they use a fair amount of insulation...
Wood-fired kilns on the other hand... I've seen wood kilns so hot that they literally vaporised 5cm logs as they are thrown into the firebox.
Why this is relevant? Potters use salt for some types of firing. The salt also tends to vaporise. $creator help anyone standing downwind from the kiln as the salt usually forms a sizable quantity of HCl and NaOH during combustion. (salt + smoke)