Peak Oil News and Message Boards

Still, 20,000 acres to generate only 200MW seems like a waste of space. Maybe In the Australian outback it's OK for one or two but it could never be widely adopted. They should just take the $750 million it will cost and put the solar panels on people's roofs.

A solar tower works on temerature differences. It would work better during the day when the base is heated by solar radiation. At night though there would still be warm air at the base and relatively cold air 3000 or 4000 feet up. This would allow air convection currents to keep on flowing in the tower even if they are slower than during the day.

Sorry-I am a bad speller-that temperature!

Cynus wrote:Still, 20,000 acres to generate only 200MW seems like a waste of space. Maybe In the Australian outback it's OK for one or two but it could never be widely adopted. They should just take the $750 million it will cost and put the solar panels on people's roofs.

Heh, I think it's an interesting idea. Using convection to drive
turbines is a new twist.

And the Australian Outback is a perfect environment for such
a thing. Very few clouds, lots of sun. Besides, we're talking
about the Australian outback, it's not like there's much there,
or much to do besides sheep f*cking.

Might be practical in parts of the US Southwest too.

-Eric

Interesting piece of kit. And seeing as it would be producing the most power at the hottest times of day, it would offset the huge numbers of AC units that are running then.

I'm curious what the ecological effects of pumping large amounts of hot air up 1km would be, there's bound to be some.

This has been discussed already on this forum.

It is possible that the project may be feasible: a pilot project is working in Spain. Israel also has interest in a downdraught scheme (forget the details).

24 hr operation is feasible by enormous water reservoirs under the greenhouse.

Maintenance would be difficult as temperatures and air speeds under the greenhouse would make life untenable. I would hate to be the window cleaner in a dusty place like the outback.

As far as I know, the pilot project in Spain was one of the most unsucessful solar projects ever. Meaning that, in comparison to other solar energy methods, they found almost anything else had advantages over it. Unless I'm misunderstanding the project you are talking about.

It'll cost an incredible amount of energy in high grade concrete alone... but it appears that the numbers STACK up.

I'd be amazed if they actually end up building the thing, it seems to be one of those 'always two years away' ideas. Although you don't buy 25,000 acres in the outback for nothing. Anything is better than a new brown coal plant!

This is one of the worst energy ideas I've seen in a long time. The efficiency is only about 2%, much less than even amorphous Silicon solar cells and more than 10 times less than concentrator type solar thermal. Furthermore, there is a kind of bait and switch involved, in that originally Schlaich and Bergenmann (http://www.sbp.de) said the idea was especially suited for more cloudy but hot climates such as tropical areas because it could run on diffuse sunlight. However now they are building the plant in a very dry, sunny semi-desert area, not in an area where they originally said the plant would be best for. In an area, in fact, best suited for concentrator type solar thermal. Why? Probably because they want to sell the idea and 2% of 1500 kWh/m^2/a avergae solar radiation is even less impressive than 2% of 2000 kWh/m^2/a. And because in a desert they would not run into the problems of draining 38 square kilometersd worth of torential downpours or effects of atmospheric moisture on concrete and equipment.

Also they estimate they can run th eplant with only 15-20 people. How do they propose to do that?

And Doly is right, the Spanish prototype was quite rediculous. It generated only 50 kW of power, about the same as a compact car's engine.

here's the website of the company that will supposedly build this thing.

http://www.enviromission.com.au/index1.htm

It has some "cute" video clips and if you're curious they're looking for a few gullible people to dump money into this project......errrr....I meant "investors".

http://www.enviromission.com.au/

Welcome to EnviroMission Limited

Within five years EnviroMission aims to be one of Australia’s leading producers of clean, green renewable energy.

We are a newly listed public company committed to establishing profitable,
large-scale renewable energy generation power stations for the Australian electricity market.

Our aim is to lead the renewable energy market with new energy technologies that do not consume fuel resources or produce greenhouse gas emissions.

EnviroMission owns the exclusive licence to German designed Solar Tower technology in Australia. Our first project will focus on developing this revolutionary technology into the world’s first large-scale solar thermal power station capable of generating enough electricity to supply 200,000 typical Australian homes.

Being a world first and the largest engineered structure ever proposed for construction is unimaginable for many people - a short animated video of an artist's impression of this landmark development can be viewed at the link.

I believe you'll find extensive discussion of the concept on this
thread

What is happening with the proposed solar tower project in the Australian outback. There isn't much for new coming out of this project. It seems to be a very important strategy to me. Anyone have any details?

It is starting to look like a classic scam, all the original investment money has disappeared, the founders are trying to get more, and the project has been massively scaled down, while still no permits have been issued or ground broken after decades.

There was another thread about it at:

http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic17561.html

SHiFTY wrote:It is starting to look like a classic scam, all the original investment money has disappeared, the founders are trying to get more, and the project has been massively scaled down, while still no permits have been issued or ground broken after decades.

I love it. There have been people all over this, touting it as THE SOLUTION to all our energy problems.

Will people ever learn? Nahhhh.

My understanding of this is that the technology is very sound; but the cost seems prohibitive. Perhaps it will resurrect itself if the peak does arrive.

dhfenton wrote:My understanding of this is that the technology is very sound; but the cost seems prohibitive. Perhaps it will resurrect itself if the peak does arrive.

However by then the cost of the energy to impliment it might be so high as to make it totally unaffordable.

Exactly, it may be another case of "he who hesitates is lost." Great example of technology being there; but, the leadership at the government and corporate level won't take the risk that might result in future windfalls.

Alas, the dream is over. Strapped for cash, and begging the Australian government for additional funds, Enviromission decided to downsize the tower to 400 m (1333 ft) without much fanfare.

Wow that's quite a drop going from 1000m to 400m!

My "investment instincts" tells me this project isn't worth a barrel a crude oil. Let the fools rush in and throw their money into this pipe dream.