Once again the ingenuity of us humans has amazed me.

First I’ve heard of this technology. Thousands of parabolic mirrors, positioned by computer controlled actuators focus light from the sun onto a power tower. This is a tall (1000m in some cases) tower which has a cold salt tank at the top. Radiated heat from the sun, via the mirror array, heats the cold salts up to 530+ deg. C. The hot salts are then dropped down the tower into a thermal battery. Then more conventional technology comes in. Heat from the battery is used to heat water to produce steam to drive generators for up to 15 hours. Hey presto. Renewable energy.

Wow.

They have these in a few really hot countries. Although I’d heard of the tower that contains oil that is then used in a heat exchanger to general steam power electricity.

Tonyg. I’m sure the thermal medium varies. I think Iran uses the oil type for obvious reasons.

They are also quite amazingly beautiful in a techy sort of way:

😉

Isn’t the biggest in Spain? I saw it whilst going through Extramedura (but can’t think where exactly) from about 20k’s in the distance, it was a bloody big thing..

I think it’s amazeballz 😀

Oh I can see this featuring in the next Bond film.

Do you expect me to talk.
No, Mr Bond I expect you to die.

🙂

There’s some really big ones around, there was one featured in Flipboard recently that’s in California. They really need continual sunshine to function properly, so not suitable for the UK. Not really a new idea, Archimedes developed a similar idea for burning invading wooden ships, and I used a magnifying mirror to burn ants…
I think some of these arrays have been around for at least a decade if not longer, the principle is really pretty simple.

Extramedura

Extremadura.

Extresol-II, near Badajoz:

There’s one I visited as a kid in the Pyrenees, the Font-Romeu-Odeillo-Via. Also amazeballz:

^^^ Bloody Science, proper Science that!! 😯
It’s the fella, though I didn’t go to it for some raving idiotic thought that I needed to get somewhere else..
I’m such an idiot 🙄

Hey presto. Renewable energy

Actual, proper, useful, large quantities of, renewable energy, too.

All round awesome.

As I recall the energy produced per square km of land is pretty low.

You’re better off with PV (much as I hate to say that).

I’m pretty sure that although the overall efficiency is similar to the (best) PV cells, the cost per KwHr is significntly lower?

mark90 – Member
Oh I can see this featuring in the next Bond film.

Do you expect me to talk.
No, Mr Bond I expect you to die.

OT, but:
iirc, the reason Connery looks genuinely nervous in that scene is because there was a guy under the table with an oxyacetaline torch, cutting up through the metal to simulate the laser (before the red laser line was added in post prod)…….

This is a tall (1000m in some cases) tower …

I think that’s exaggerating a little 😉

So whats the carbon costs in manufacture, transport, assembly and maintenance ?

Do not dispute the ingenuity but does it stack up as genuinely carbon free once all the bills are paid, who polshes the mirrors ???

who polishes the mirrors ???”

The one thing I remember from watching a program about this was the computer controlling/monitoring the mirrors was so sensitive it could pick up a speck of dust on the individual mirrors affecting their performance!

RM.

So whats the carbon costs in manufacture, transport, assembly and maintenance ?

Plus back up/additional capacity for when the sun hasn’t got his hat on!

The one in font-romeu also has a lovely retro-futuristic feel to it.if you ever visited the Atomium in brussels/heysel before they did it up a few years ago, its like that.

Can you see them from the SpaceStation ??

And aren’t the mirrors self cleaning ?

These things are not new, just so as you know.

These things are not new, just so as you know.

Indeed. Font Romeau is over 40 years old.

Whilst the fundamental system processes are not new, the subtleties of the latest plants is quite new. Things like large scale computer controlled heliostatic arrays made up of multiple ultra high precision mirror elements, with catalytic self cleaning coatings, IS quite new 😉

Worth noting, that really, these plants have only become economically viable due to the continued increase in the costs and political pressures associated with conventional generating schemes…………

OT, but:
iirc, the reason Connery looks genuinely nervous in that scene is because there was a guy under the table with an oxyacetaline torch, cutting up through the metal to simulate the laser (before the red laser line was added in post prod)…….

Even more OT but YOU’RE BOTH TALKING ABOUT THE WRONG FREAKING BOND FILM FOR CHRISTS’S SAKE!!!!!!!

The bond film where the sun is captured and focused onto a single point is The Man with the Golden Gun!!!!

Plus back up/additional capacity for when the sun hasn’t got his hat on!

You’re not allowed to say that.

Ethan and Uma in “Gattaca”:

Mojave desert. Not quite the same technology, though, as the sunlight is focused on a tube in front of the mirrors, rather than a central tower
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Energy_Generating_Systems

You’re not allowed to say that.

Sorry, next I’ll be getting into trouble for commenting that wind was producing a fraction of a % of total demand when I looked earlier today – 0.17GW of the over 10GW installed capacity and 38GW demand