THE ALL SEEING eye;) Another example of harnessing the power of the sun in some crazy way\.

[So]

Originally posted by: andylawcc

Originally posted by: Sc4freak
Yes, free. Except, of course, that it costs many times more than "regular" power generation.

In terms of costs on the environment, then yes it's "free".

in the short term, the cost of capital is HUGE. but in the long run, as long as maintanence is relatively cheap, this IS the way to go.

No, it's not. 11 megawatts is a drop in the ocean. A single coal plant often puts out thousands of megawatts. THOUSANDS. There are maintenance costs are real, the opportunity costs for other uses of the land are real. The power can't be turned on when needed like a real power plant, it ebbs and flows depending on cloud cover, not customer demand -- so you need to have coal plants anyway -- all you're doing is building a big pretty feel good project.

 

[mobobuff]

In the picture it looks like at least a dozen of their mirrors are misaligned. Maybe they were being worked on.

 

[eLiu]

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Solex Agitator

Aww I was going to post that. You win

 

[otispunkmeyer]

couldnt they build a huge magnifying lens thing to concentrate the suns rays even more? you know like when you burn ants on a hot day?

though i guess your not actually improving the amount of energy, just channelling it into a smaller area.

nice idea, and a beautiful piece of engineering, but honestly they should of just built a nuclear plant and be done with it.

 

[imported_Tango]

Originally posted by: Sc4freak
11 megawatts? That's not exactly a blazingly large power output. Modern coal/oil/nuclear power plants generate up to 1 gigawatt and beyond.

It is Europe's first commercially operating power station using the Sun's energy this way and at the moment its operator, Solucar, proudly claims that it generates 11 Megawatts (MW) of electricity without emitting a single puff of greenhouse gas. This current figure is enough to power up to 6,000 homes.

But ultimately, the entire plant should generate as much power as is used by the 600,000 people of Seville.


It's not running at capacity. All Seville running on solar energy is just incredible. Spain is one of the leaders in wind power generation also.

 

[andylawcc]

Originally posted by: So
No, it's not. 11 megawatts is a drop in the ocean. A single coal plant often puts out thousands of megawatts. THOUSANDS. There are maintenance costs are real, the opportunity costs for other uses of the land are real. The power can't be turned on when needed like a real power plant, it ebbs and flows depending on cloud cover, not customer demand -- so you need to have coal plants anyway -- all you're doing is building a big pretty feel good project.

well, as minute as the productivity of solar power is, I am basing my assumption that fossil will eventually run out, while sun light won't (at least for another xxxxx amount of years)

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Paratus
The size problem is due to only ~350 W/M^2 of solar flux being available at ground level. So they'd need ~31500M^2 of reflecting surface & that's assuming 100% efficency which they aren't getting.

My solar arrays are only ~18% efficient but have ~1300 W/M^2 solar flux available as they are at a slightly higher altitude.

(click link in sig for pic)

ah.....frying "ants" with that array would be cool..

dude..hey dude....dude..check this out....Rome is burning AHAHAHHAHAHA

:evil:

Size has nothing to do with efficiency (well, not in the way that you suggest).

Your 31500 m^2 with 315W/m^2 just means you collect a total of 9.9 millions watts, 18% of which you turn into power, or about 1.7 million watts.


again, you are pulling that area number out of nowhere and it is irrelevant. This is also not a solar array, this is a solar heater - it boils water to run turbines, it isn't converted directly to electricity. This will be much more efficient, as most inefficiencies in systems manifest themselves as heat - heat is the desired energy form here and they can probably turn about 80% of the solar energy they collect into heat, possibly more. Modern power plants are pretty efficient about converting heat into electrical power, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually a very efficient operation.

I think you missed my point.

Futuristic monkey commented on the size required for a measly 11Mw.

This plant must collect at least 11Mw of solar power at 100% efficency to generate said 11Mw. Doesn't matter that it is a solar concentrator vs PV cells other than one is more efficent than the other.

The 350W/m^2 came from a Scientific American article. The 1300W/m^2 came from some back of the envelope blackbody radialtion calcs I did for solar power in orbit.

So you take 11Mw/350 & you get 31500m^2 of collecting surface.

 

[clamum]

So 11 MW powers 6,000 homes... they would need roughly 1,100 MW for 600,000 right? That would be cool if they could do that.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: andylawcc

Originally posted by: So
No, it's not. 11 megawatts is a drop in the ocean. A single coal plant often puts out thousands of megawatts. THOUSANDS. There are maintenance costs are real, the opportunity costs for other uses of the land are real. The power can't be turned on when needed like a real power plant, it ebbs and flows depending on cloud cover, not customer demand -- so you need to have coal plants anyway -- all you're doing is building a big pretty feel good project.

well, as minute as the productivity of solar power is, I am basing my assumption that fossil will eventually run out, while sun light won't (at least for another xxxxx amount of years)

Except that if we reprocess the nuclear fuel that we have (and can mine / extract from the oceans), it will last even longer.

 

[So]

Originally posted by: eLiu

Originally posted by: Rubycon
Solex Agitator

Aww I was going to post that. You win

You do win indeed. Can't believe I missed that.

 

[silverpig]

Originally posted by: Paratus

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Paratus
The size problem is due to only ~350 W/M^2 of solar flux being available at ground level. So they'd need ~31500M^2 of reflecting surface & that's assuming 100% efficency which they aren't getting.

My solar arrays are only ~18% efficient but have ~1300 W/M^2 solar flux available as they are at a slightly higher altitude.

(click link in sig for pic)

ah.....frying "ants" with that array would be cool..

dude..hey dude....dude..check this out....Rome is burning AHAHAHHAHAHA

:evil:

Size has nothing to do with efficiency (well, not in the way that you suggest).

Your 31500 m^2 with 315W/m^2 just means you collect a total of 9.9 millions watts, 18% of which you turn into power, or about 1.7 million watts.


again, you are pulling that area number out of nowhere and it is irrelevant. This is also not a solar array, this is a solar heater - it boils water to run turbines, it isn't converted directly to electricity. This will be much more efficient, as most inefficiencies in systems manifest themselves as heat - heat is the desired energy form here and they can probably turn about 80% of the solar energy they collect into heat, possibly more. Modern power plants are pretty efficient about converting heat into electrical power, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually a very efficient operation.

I think you missed my point.

Futuristic monkey commented on the size required for a measly 11Mw.

This plant must collect at least 11Mw of solar power at 100% efficency to generate said 11Mw. Doesn't matter that it is a solar concentrator vs PV cells other than one is more efficent than the other.

The 350W/m^2 came from a Scientific American article. The 1300W/m^2 came from some back of the envelope blackbody radialtion calcs I did for solar power in orbit.

So you take 11Mw/350 & you get 31500m^2 of collecting surface.

It's more like 1350 W/m^2 at the earth's surface. That 350 number is wrong.

 

[hanoverphist]

Originally posted by: futuristicmonkey
That's not generation..that's art. If they'd paint the damned thing black they'd probably get twice the power.
-ben

the lines the water is in are probably black iron pipes. i had a chance to design a program and graphic package for a power company here in az that wanted a solar field. it wasnt like this however, it used 600 degree mineral oil to run turbines that created power. the collectors were like huge airfoils that would track the sun, heating up black pipes with mineral oil in them.the focal point would get up to 600 egrees, and even higher if you focused it differently. one of the guys that helped design the system left his truck in front of a collector when it was being worked on, and the beam hitting his truck while being raised to meet the sun was enough to melt the paint and the plastic side mirrors on the truck. this was a system that was meant to complement their normal steam generators however, so it was only a 1MW output station. pretty small scale as well, but it did the job. when the area was near the limits of the plant, the solar would give them that extra oomph needed to keep peoples tvs on. much cheaper than buying a few square miles and building a second plant that would be total overkill for the area, and environmentally sound as well.

the tower is really cool looking, but i doubt its color plays much into the process.

 

[Chadder007]

Originally posted by: futuristicmonkey
That's not generation..that's art. If they'd paint the damned thing black they'd probably get twice the power.

Seriously -- all of that construction for 11 megawatts? I don't even like wind power but you could probably build a wind farm for half the price in the same area for at least double the power. This is nonsense.

-ben

....Unless there is barely any wind there.

 

[Paratus]

Originally posted by: silverpig

Originally posted by: Paratus

Originally posted by: LordMorpheus

Originally posted by: Goosemaster

Originally posted by: Paratus
The size problem is due to only ~350 W/M^2 of solar flux being available at ground level. So they'd need ~31500M^2 of reflecting surface & that's assuming 100% efficency which they aren't getting.

My solar arrays are only ~18% efficient but have ~1300 W/M^2 solar flux available as they are at a slightly higher altitude.

(click link in sig for pic)

ah.....frying "ants" with that array would be cool..

dude..hey dude....dude..check this out....Rome is burning AHAHAHHAHAHA

:evil:

Size has nothing to do with efficiency (well, not in the way that you suggest).

Your 31500 m^2 with 315W/m^2 just means you collect a total of 9.9 millions watts, 18% of which you turn into power, or about 1.7 million watts.


again, you are pulling that area number out of nowhere and it is irrelevant. This is also not a solar array, this is a solar heater - it boils water to run turbines, it isn't converted directly to electricity. This will be much more efficient, as most inefficiencies in systems manifest themselves as heat - heat is the desired energy form here and they can probably turn about 80% of the solar energy they collect into heat, possibly more. Modern power plants are pretty efficient about converting heat into electrical power, so I wouldn't be surprised if this is actually a very efficient operation.

I think you missed my point.

Futuristic monkey commented on the size required for a measly 11Mw.

This plant must collect at least 11Mw of solar power at 100% efficency to generate said 11Mw. Doesn't matter that it is a solar concentrator vs PV cells other than one is more efficent than the other.

The 350W/m^2 came from a Scientific American article. The 1300W/m^2 came from some back of the envelope blackbody radialtion calcs I did for solar power in orbit.

So you take 11Mw/350 & you get 31500m^2 of collecting surface.

It's more like 1350 W/m^2 at the earth's surface. That 350 number is wrong.

Actually I'm right:

Link

1) How much energy is received by the earth?
Solar radiation incident on the Earth's disk (1370 Watts per square meter) --comparable to energy incident a flat, horizontal surface when the sun is directly overhead on a clear day.

We need to multiply the incoming solar energy by the factor 1/4--the
ratio of the area of the earth's disk (pi R2) to the Earth's surface area (4 pi R2)-- You can think of this as spreading out the incident solar radiation uniformly over the earth's surface (the night side of the earth as well as the day side) 1370 / 4 = 342.5 watts per square meter.

Then we need to multiply by the factor 0.70, which takes into account the fact that 30% of the incident solar radiation is reflected back to space by clouds, snow and ice, the light colored sands of the deserts, and even just a bit from the daisies. 342.5 x 0.7 = 239.7 watts per square meter. The 0.70 is equivalent to the factor (1-A) in the formula in the text.

 

[lyssword]

The idea of 1000's of mirrors evaporating chemicals was shown in a recent movie "Sahara". In the african desert.