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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 is in an environment which will be naturally tough on the system. While capex is crazy high it will be interesting to see how it stacks up cost wise over a 50 year life span. It may be the as we get better at building these sytems and production infrastructure scales that this type of plant could deliver a decent cost per watt.
It's Morocco, not UK. They ideally situated for solar plants like that.
The http://www.theguardian.com/env... has a link to
"Morocco: Works on World’s Largest Solar Plant Financed by AfDB Go Underway"
http://www.afdb.org/en/news-an...
breaking down the different phase funding AC.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
It's Morocco, not UK. They ideally situated for solar plants like that.
Oh heck, I was being sarcastic. I'm really a nuc or solar/wind guy at heart. Coal? It's a killer.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
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.
What are you babbling about? The full national project, at 580MW, is almost half of what a minimal nuclear power plant puts out. The Moroccans are demonstrating that dedicating massive resources to not only a major national project, but one of the biggest in the world using cutting edge solar technology, can almost equal half the value of a single 1970's era nuke plant. Nothing like being underwhelmed...
There is nothing cutting edge about this project. Regardless, I was being sarcastic.
I don't have much against nuc plants, although I don't trust the bean counters and top management, who are primarily interested in minimal costs, deadlines, and safety is well down on the list despite what we're told. But if they want to build a mirror plant, they can have at it. At least they don't have to worry about fuel disposal.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Re 'tried and true solar panels" work during the day. The idea is to try and work around that night time traditional big battery storage issue with a 'heat tank containing molten sands that can store heat energy for three hours, allowing the plant to power homes into the night."
The main issues seems to be to try and get away from the "We import 94% of our energy as fossil fuels from abroad and that has big consequences for our state budget".
The cost of another fossil fuel project, the related imports and hard currency exchange should be interesting to see over the project.
The cost of batteries might have to still be reduced to become viable for big grid storage in different parts of the world. Another option is "demand response" and discounted tariffs to try and ensure people use energy during the day vs traditional demand peaks.
ie reshape midday power prices.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
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.
They ideally situated for solar plants like that.
Am I the only one that thinks the combination of precision mirrors/optics and Saharan sand storms might not be a good combination?
Over the past four decades, the entire industry has produced 74,258 metric tons of used nuclear fuel. If used fuel assemblies were stacked end-to-end and side-by-side, this would cover a football field about eight yards deep.
http://www.nei.org/Knowledge-C...
So a country that invented nuclear power, currently runs 100 reactors constituting the largest nuclear generation in the world and has been for the last 50 years, only has produced enough "waste" to cover a football field eight yards deep?
That's less space than this plant will take up, for the world's greatest stockpile of nuclear waste...
The problem is the waste and ecological damage of building massive solar and wind projects are not considered in this logic. Calculate the mining, milling, toxic wastes, etc involved in building massive low output energy devices.
It's the same country that banned the recycling of fuel, unlike every other country that has nuclear power. Those eight yards by a football field of "waste," as you so kindly quoted it, are ripe for reprocessing if Congress ever lifts the ban on doing so.
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.
Morocco, located along the northwestern African coast
I'm guessing that anyone who has to be told where Morocco is will also need to be told where the northwestern African coast is. :p
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).
It's a huge plus to be able to store the energy as heat and generate electricity when you actually need it as opposed to when the sun shines.
for one thing it means you get a lot more money per kwh. Also there are indications that for really large scale and long term solutions the thermal solar power plants are the way to go http://phoenixprojectfoundatio... .
Ouarzazate is on the outer reaches of the Sahara. In fact, Morocco barely contains any Sahara at all, that's over on the Algerian side.
The desert around Ouarzazate is mostly rocky, and it takes several hours in a 4x4 to get to the sandy Sahara people are familiar with.
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.
Pretty damn small, :D :D
So is a solar pant in Morroc, considering it is built in the desert
given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal
It can perhaps Substitute *one* coal plant, not hundrets.
or solar power plants As the sizes of plants vary this is not a safe bet either
and one unit of nuclear energy requires thousands of times less mining than one unit of fossil or solar (for the panels) energy.
So you never actually informed yourself about how uranium is mined?
But you dare to give your uneducated opinion?
(*facepalm*)
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Sounds pretty cool! Except... do we really want something like Archimedes left in Moroccan hands? I wouldn't even want the Brotherhood in sole control of it!
Well, they aren't the usual solar panels, just mirrors, so toxic byproducts from their production should be minimal if they exist at all. And they're going in a desert, so no worries there.
When you're talking volume of nuclear waste, it's best to measure it in four dimensions.
What? Did you intend to make sense there?
I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
Morocco is a Muslim country. No pork!
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.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
From Wikipedia:
The manufacturing processes of solar cell involve the emissions of several toxic, flammable and explosive chemicals. Lately, in the field of photovoltaic research, there has been a continual rise in research and development efforts focused on reducing mass during cell manufacture. Such efforts have resulted in reducing the thickness of solar cells and thus the next generation solar cells are becoming thinner and eventually risks of exposure are reduced nevertheless, all chemicals must be carefully handled to ensure minimal human and environmental contact. The large scale deployment of such renewable energy technologies could result in potential negative environmental implications.
PV panels wear out and have to be replaced periodically. Mirrors do too (you can only repolish them so much), but they're just glass with a thin metallic backing, and unlike PV panels, they could be produced locally. Depending on your heat source, glass is about as eco-friendly as you get materials-wise.
There's no reason why they couldn't use battery storage with this. The thermal battery is just a byproduct of the way solar thermal works - you have the stored heat whether you want it or not, so why not keep the turbine running all night?
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
If there is Plutonium in that waste, someone should tell the NRC, we should be reprocessing it to pull that out as it is damn useful to NASA and the DOD.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
A good sandstorm might scour the shine off those fancy mirrors.
Tiller's Rule: Never use a word in written form that you've only heard and never read. You will end up looking foolish.
Sharia law forbids interest too, so they should get loans for free.
Do you have any idea about the scale of batteries and "ultra capacitors" they would need for this? Not to mention the components to regulate charging, discharging, etc. No, of course you don't, because you think things like "heat transfer solution" and "turns into steam" are "complicated sounding stuffs."
Let me try to explain it in terms you'll understand better.
Mirrors shine light on metal pipe.
Metal pipe contains special oil.
Light makes oil hot.
Hot oil dumps into tank.
Oil heats water and makes it boil.
Steam from boiling turns turbine.
If you want to talk about "tried and true" solutions, find a large-scale power generation source that has been used more than a steam turbine. Even nuclear plants, for all of their high technology, still use steam turbines to generate the actual power.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal or solar power plants
No, that's not "given", you idiot. You can't just make shit up and then claim it's "given". Do even some basic research. The total output of this solar plant at completion is 580MW. The largest planned nuclear reactor will output around 1600MW. At Palo Verde here in Arizona, the largest energy generating station in the country, the 3 reactors each output about 1450MW. At 1600MW, the statement that "one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of solar power plants" is only true if the solar power plant outputs 16MW, which is 2.7% of the capacity of the Moroccan project.
Here is a solar power plant capable of only 11.4MW (that was state of the art in 2006, the largest solar plant 9 years ago). There you go, you can replace hundreds of those with a single nuclear reactor. I'd love to find a picture of a solar power plant that outputs 16MW, but the Wikipedia list only goes as low as 50MW for solar, sorry. Here is the Topaz solar power plant, capable of 550MW, constructed 2011 to 2014. In order to replace 100 of those with nuclear, you'll need to build 35 1600MW reactors. Don't forget to account for all of the nuclear fuel you'll need to mine and refine or purchase, in addition to all of the waste you're going to generate.
By the way, if you want to talk construction costs, like I already said it took 3 years to build the Topaz solar farm and cost $2.4 billion. Construction at Palo Verde started in 1976, and the first 2 reactors came online in 1986, the third in 1988. Construction cost was $5.9 billion (in 1980s dollars, feel free to adjust for inflation). Those numbers are just to avoid any bullshit claims along the lines of solar power being hundreds of times more expensive than nuclear, in case you want to try and pull something else out of your ass.
and one unit of nuclear energy requires thousands of times less mining than one unit of fossil or solar (for the panels) energy.
Panels? What fucking panels? The Moroccan project uses mirrors, pipes, heat transfer oil, sand, and water. Where are the panels?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
> It doesn't require rare earth metals like a photovoltaic setup would.
PV panels don't need rare earths. They are made of silicon (for the cells), plus trace elements like Phosphorus to provide the right semiconductor properties. The frame is aluminum and glass, with typically polyvinylacetate (plastic) backing sheet. You need wires to connect the cells to each other, and then the panels to each other. The mounting for the panels is typically steel or aluminum, with some concrete to anchor it to the ground.
Tracking mounts are becoming more popular, those follow the Sun to get more output from the panels. That adds a motor to a group of panels so they can move, but it doesn't have to be a fancy rare earth magnet. The tracking motion is as fast as the Sun moves, so it's a pretty small motor.
You may be thinking of wind turbines, which *do* sometimes use rare-earth magnets in their generators. The generator handles 1.5 to 3 MW these days for commercial wind turbines, and it has to be installed on top of a ~120 meter tall post. So reducing weight is important.
given that one nuclear reactor can substitute for hundreds of coal or solar power plants
No, that's not "given", you idiot. You can't just make shit up and then claim it's "given". Do even some basic research.
If some basic research is performed, how can he make shit up? Some of the pro-nuc crowd are much worse idiots than the anti-nuc crowd.
Here is a solar power plant capable of only 11.4MW (that was state of the art in 2006, the largest solar plant 9 years ago).
Much of the objection to so called alternative energy sources are made using old data. I don't think the proponents of Nuc power realize the disservice they do to the industry. All of those things that make a nuc plant, a nuc plant, make for issues. The incredible energy density, the radiation's effects on materials, all kinds of stuff that makes nuc plants take a long time to build, and really expensive to build.
In addition, any second or third world country undertaking a nuc energy project is going to come under intense scrutiny. And that really takes the bloom off the rose.
As well, the technology in a solar plant like this is not such that little problems become real big problems in short order. Fukushima for example would have been no huge deal if the cooling water could have been restored. Power goes out, the mirrors lock up, and the mirrors reflections eventually move off the heating vessel, the biggest issues will be rerouting airplanes in that event No doubt there's emergency power for that anyway.
Scalability is quick and really easy by comparison.
A sunny desert, lots of empty real estate, seems like a pretty natural place to put a solar power generating station. There are places where I would heartily recommend a nuc reactor. Morocco is not one of them.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
It was apparently a bad day for posting on /., as my memory is apparently failing me. I was probably thinking about batteries, but who knows.
I knew there were environmental issues with PV, but I misremembered what they were. Apparently, they're related to the manufacturing process. According to Wikipedia:
The manufacturing processes of solar cell involve the emissions of several toxic, flammable and explosive chemicals. Lately, in the field of photovoltaic research, there has been a continual rise in research and development efforts focused on reducing mass during cell manufacture. Such efforts have resulted in reducing the thickness of solar cells and thus the next generation solar cells are becoming thinner and eventually risks of exposure are reduced nevertheless, all chemicals must be carefully handled to ensure minimal human and environmental contact. The large scale deployment of such renewable energy technologies could result in potential negative environmental implications. These potential problems can pose serious challenges in promulgating such technologies to a broad segment of consumers.
Glass doesn't have that problem, although I can't really say for the mirror backing.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
A sunny desert, lots of empty real estate, seems like a pretty natural place to put a solar power generating station. There are places where I would heartily recommend a nuc reactor.
And then there's Arizona, where we have the only major nuclear plant in the world not next to a body of water, and we're finally getting some good solar projects going on in the empty desert between Phoenix and Yuma, as well as all around Phoenix. It's good to see solar taking hold here, and I've never had a problem with the nuke plant (they have agreements with the nearby cities to take treated wastewater to use as coolant). The only issue with the plant is that it's upwind from the Phoenix area, so that would be a problem in the event of a major accident. But, considering that the company I work for makes training materials for the people who work at the plant, I like to say that I have a certain amount of confidence that it's run well. Earthquakes aren't an issue around Phoenix, at least not for the past 25 years or so, major tornadoes are very rare, etc.
Nuclear definitely has a place in the energy grid, but anyone paying attention the past decade or so can clearly see that the future is in renewables, especially solar. The planet gets hit with far more energy than people need, it's just a matter of putting the capacity in and continuing to advance the technologies around it to bring efficiency and reliability up and cost down. The writing is obviously on the wall though. Even so, I'd still love to see development of community nuclear reactors that can power a small or medium town for 30 years or so, that would be a game-changing technology for most of Africa while solar infrastructure and a continental electrical grid can be installed. There's no reason to think that only 1 energy technology is the way forward. If you go out to our nuclear plant, you're about a mile away from a medium-sized natural gas plant, and surrounding them are 2 large solar fields. The nuclear plant carries most of the burden, but there's no reason to rely on that when we have so much sunlight just heating the ground all day.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
No, you're not. Morocco is probably better off buying a few nuke plants.
That fourth dimension is ~300 years, not tens of thousands.
"In addition, any second or third world country undertaking a nuc energy project is going to come under intense scrutiny."
China is more than willing to sell anyone a civil nuclear plant, complete with the security systems and staff required to run it.
"The only issue with the plant is that it's upwind from the Phoenix area,"
If "we" got water away from the fuel, being upwind of anything wouldn't matter. Nuclear plants don't "explode" in the A-bomb sense, they vent radioactive steam and/or hydrogen if they get too hot, or in worst case you get a pipe/boiler burst.
These things happen no matter how safe you make the system, so commonsense should dictate that radioactives can't get dissolved into the water in the first place (molten sodium is particularly stupid. You should use a coolant at the bottom of the chemical energy curve not one which is going to burn furiously if there's a leak)
"I'd imagine that solar thermal does pretty well in regards to waste and ecological damage."
Deserts and other environments which are ideal for solar-thermal are extremely fragile ecosystems. Just the fact of having the stuff there and people wandering around them is extremely damaging.
"In addition, any second or third world country undertaking a nuc energy project is going to come under intense scrutiny."
China is more than willing to sell anyone a civil nuclear plant, complete with the security systems and staff required to run it.
Umm, the scrutiny won't be coming from them, but countries who don't want them processing the spent fuel for you know, explodey stuff.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Every environment is "extremely fragile."
Deserts have the advantage that they tend to be large and there's no shortage of them. Habitat loss is minimal. A solar thermal plant might be large, but it takes up only a tiny percentage of the desert it's in.
I understand your sentiment, but you should probably save it for ecologies that actually need the protection.
Those who can't do, teach. Those who can't teach either, do tech support.
Yes, but Morrocan government under Hassan II entirely destroyed the country's educative system in the 80', after the massive investments in education of the 50's and 60's produced a high number of educated leftists...
Math levels are quite good for the selected few, but a big engineering project can't rely only on maths.