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CA's First Molten Salt Energy Plant Approved
An anonymous reader writes "This year we've seen molten salt power plants start to pick up steam around the world, and now the technology is heating up stateside — California just approved its first molten salt energy plant. Designed by SolarReserve, the plant uses heliostats to focus thermal energy on a power tower filled with salt, which is able to reach very high temperatures (over 1000 degrees Fahrenheit) and can hold heat for an extraordinary length of time. Heat from this reserve of molten salt can then be pumped through a steam generator to provide on-demand energy long after the sun has set."
Eliminate that make-believe accuracy, as the original was probably rounded at least +/-50 F to the round 1000 figure. 800 Kelvin is plenty accurate here.
Realistically? No. The thermal mass required to keep a steam turbine running 24/7 is not something you want in your house. This is large scale industrialized energy production. The only personal scale applications are solar hot water heaters and greenhouses, and in those cases your goal is to take advantage of the stored heat directly instead of converting it to electricity.
Yes of course. It could even be used to create mirrors for more solar towers. The whole damn thing could be self-replicating.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I'm beginning to suspect the Mythbusters intentionally blow it once in a while just to give the geeks something to argue about. That gets them more buzz.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Efficiency is going to directly impact the size of the collector you need for a given application, and thus cost. So yes, efficiency is quite important in solar power, as it is in every other renewable energy source. It is less important than with other energy sources, yet still quite important. And it could easily mean that below a certain size of application, the technology is economically infeasible.
The enemies of Democracy are
Well, the tower itself will be ridiculously hot, so I don't think many birds would voluntarily get near it. It's not like you cross a threshold and suddenly fry, it's more like walking toward a large fire. You'll feel uncomforatble long before it's actually dangerous, and if you keep approaching you're probably doing your species a favor.
The energy reflected from the mirrors isn't inherently dangerous. In any given beam, you'll get twice the solar energy that is expected; the normal part fromt he sun plus the reflected beam. This won't be fun to stand in on an already hot desert day, but it's not like you're walking through a high-powered microwave beam or something.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
I didn't see anywhere in the article where they say that Sodium Chloride (i.e. table salt) was going to be used. I thought power plants typically used a different kind of salt (Sodium Nitrate?) to store thermal energy?
Since the diagram in the article shows the "cold" tank being at 550 degF, then they must not be using sodium chloride or it would be a solid in that tank.
I would say that it's close enough for the kind of scientific work where using non-metric units is acceptable.