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Morocco's Solar Power Mega-Project (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader writes: Morocco, located along the northwestern African coast, is in prime position to take advantage of solar technology, and they've committed to one of the biggest such projects in the world. The city of Ouarzazate will host "a complex of four linked solar mega-plants that, alongside hydro and wind, will help provide nearly half of Morocco's electricity from renewables by 2020." It will be the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. "The mirror technology it uses is less widespread and more expensive than the photovoltaic panels that are now familiar on roofs the world over, but it will have the advantage of being able to continue producing power even after the sun goes down." The first phase of the project, called Noor 1, comprises 500,000 solar mirrors that track the sun throughout the day, with a maximum capacity of 160MW. When the full project finishes, it will be able to generate up to 580MW. "Each parabolic mirror is 12 meters high and focused on a steel pipeline carrying a 'heat transfer solution' (HTF) that is warmed to 393C as it snakes along the trough before coiling into a heat engine. There, it is mixed with water to create steam that turns energy-generating turbines."
just for context, 580 MW is the power output of a single medium-sized natural gas power plant. I'm a big fan of solar, and the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and all that, but they've got a long way to go to make a dent in regional energy needs.
also, $9B for 580 MW comes out to ~$15/W, which is a pretty steep capex (but with hopefully minimal opex due to not needing fuel). Compare to non-thermal PV solar, with installed capex cost of say $2/W and no/fewer moving parts (so les opex, although not capable of storing/delivering energy after dark unless coupled to a battery system of some sort).
It has the advantage of not having to worry about where to store radioactive waste. Not to mention no meltdowns or radioactive leaks. So it's only half a Nuke plants output? Build two.
It by "natural", you mean bombs and grenades, yeah, it can get kinda rough.
It is being built in Morocco, not Syria.
Yeah, the place is a real paradise... Maybe I've been watching too many Humphrey Bogart movies...
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Huh? Morocco is pretty safe. Sure its got issues but they are relatively minor and I doubt you would see infrastructure like this being damaged by bombs. I'd suggest if it was built in the US there would be a higher risk of rednecks shooting the mirrors for shits and giggles.
I'm not exactly sure if you're being ironic or not so I'll proceed by assuming you're serious.
A battery or ultra-capacitor is simply a device that stores energy. A heat tank is also a device that stores energy. They're basically both batteries. The real question is which method is the most efficient. Likely, as they are using the sun to generate heat, it's more efficient to store that energy as heat before they need it.
What's the ecological damage of mining nuclear fuel and building huge reactors and cooling towers? I don't oppose nuclear power but don't pretend it doesn't have problems. I don't understand why every time somebody builds a solar power system people crawl out from under rocks everywhere to attack it. Sure, solar power isn't a panacea but then nothing really is. All energy production comes at a cost both economical and ecological.
Not really. Heat can be useful on it's own. For example a co-generation plant in Australia uses low levels of heat to warm water for an aquaculture project.
Storing as heat gives you plenty of options of what to do with it, as well as potentially providing large scale storage for far more capacity than could be gained for the same cost with batteries or capacitors even if it is far more lossy than either.
Another example is offshore windmills producing compressed air stored in underwater balloons (or in salt mines on land). The storage cost is potentially dirt cheap which outweighs the very lossy conversion to electricity.
You probably know all this, but equating all of the above to batteries just dumbs the entire discussion down to "why not use batteries", which is not something for this time when batteries still suck (just a lot less than they used to).
Americans never cease to impress me with their general ignorance of history and geography. It's just amazing that it has to be stated where Morocco is.
Morocco: north west coast of africa. Dominant wind direction: west.
How often is there a sand storm anyway? Sandstorms are more a concern because they darken the sky then because of potential damage.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
When you're talking volume of nuclear waste, it's best to measure it in four dimensions.
I haven't run the numbers, but I'd imagine that solar thermal does pretty well in regards to waste and ecological damage.
Like most other energy plants, it's mostly concrete and steel. The HTF is some kind of synthetic oil that gets reused. If they reclaim the water from the steam turbine, the plant will use very little resources once it's finished. So right there, it's already beating coal, oil, and gas.
Mirrors would need repolished, but considering that could probably be done onsite, it would be using clean energy. Motors would have to be rebuilt occasionally. Electronics would have to be replaced from time to time. Any energy plant would require maintenance of some sort anyway, so it's not really much different than wind in that regard.
It shades areas of the desert, but not completely. I'd be willing to bet it has less effect on desert life in that area than a hydro plant would have.
It doesn't require rare earth metals like a photovoltaic setup would. There's no mining involved other than the steel and concrete (which any power plant would have plenty of anyway - wind probably more steel and less concrete). Glass isn't bad, environmentally speaking - heat, sand, and some common minerals. So there really shouldn't be much in the way of toxic waste, unless they're using a particularly nasty paint (those can vary widely in eco-friendliness).
I'd say this is about as eco-friendly as you can get for a power plant. Feel free to point out anything I missed, I just woke up.
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