The plant operated for seven years between 1982 and 1989, and consistently generated 50kW output of green energy
Maybe they have made the same mistake. In the prototype section they state that the prototype generates 50 kw
Is it worth it for an efficiency of 0.4%?
keeping the glass, plastic clean
keep it going overnight
The Oz project, as I heard it, was a 1 km high guyed steel chimney and 27 km2 of greenhouses containing enormous black finned water reservoirs.
smiley wrote: It is hard to estimate the size of the thing from the picture, but it looks pretty big. I would say that it is at least 100m high with a 50 m radius
If that is the case then I wonder how big the 200 MW monolith must be.
The_Virginian wrote: Why didn't I think of that. No sun = no Heat = no Juice at night.
The quest for a new form of green energy has taken a significant step with the purchase of a 25,000-acre sheep farm in the Australian outback. The huge alternative energy project isn't driven by manure, but by a 1-kilometer-high thermal power station called the Solar Tower.
Announced several years ago, the 3,280-foot Solar Tower is one of the most ambitious alternative energy projects on the planet: a renewable energy plant that pumps out the same power as a small reactor but is totally safe. If built, it will be nearly double the height of the world's tallest structure, the CN Tower in Canada.
The Solar Tower is hollow in the middle like a chimney. At its base is a solar collector -- a 25,000-acre, transparent circular skirt. The air under the collector is heated by the sun and funneled up the chimney by convection -- hot air rises. As it rises, the air accelerates to 35 mph, driving 32 wind turbines inside the tower, which generate electricity much like conventional wind farms.
But the Solar Tower has a major advantage over wind farms and solar generators: It can operate with no wind, and 24 hours a day. Thanks to banks of solar cells, the tower stores heat during the day, allowing it to produce electricity continuously.
EnviroMission and SBP estimate the cost of their first 200-megawatt solar thermal tower at $670m, and say the cost of subsequent towers would fall. An engineering infrastructure, materials manufacturing plants and trained workforce would be in place and the design and construction would have been refined.
The initial cost is comparable with the $600m cost of building a new 200MW brown-coal power station and a drying plant for the coal, which is nearly 70% water by weight. A 200MW black-coal power station in Queensland would cost $440m. Davey says these prices ignore the unknown environmental and health costs of greenhouse gas, sulphur and particulate emissions from coal-fired power stations.
The greenhouse gas emissions gen-erated in the building phase would be recouped within the first two-and-a-half years of operation, says Davey. Thereafter, it’s a free lunch: zero emissions, convertible to carbon credits in a global market.
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