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Solar tower

I think the wors problem if this thing is its size. And I am not referring to construction problems, but something with a diameter of 5-6 kilometers, and a kilometer high, that is a prohibitive amount of real estate to take up or overshadow, in a lot of countries. In Denmark, the prize of the ground needed would be so high that the produced power wouldn't even pay for the mortgage.

I realize this is probably not too big a problem in Australia.....

Hans
In Denmark you have tide and wind, so don't complain. In Australia there's lots of desert without the kind of storms we get in these parts. Horses for courses, as the saying goes.

I hope this project goes ahead, it'll be fascinating to watch. I read about the concept years ago, probably in SciAm, and thought it intriguing. And challenging. But not ludicrous.
 
Could one of these things be built up the side of a mountain? It would obviously be less efficient, but a lot easier to build.
That might not be a bad idea. If you've got some serious gradient available - and I'm thinking mostly the Andes here - with plenty of sunlight and water you could build everyday, low-tech greenhouses with vents feeding into a tube-generator tacked on to the local mountain range. Moisture could be recovered and recycled as drinking-water in the process. No new engineering would be required - and so it's not terribly sexy. But potentially useful.
 
The only problem would be that the hothouse would be in the shade of the mountain for part of the day, and besides, there would not be too many suitable mountains in the desert.
Note to self : buy options in the Atlas Mountains. Also check out the Chilean Coastal Desert - in the rain-shadow of the Andes (serious natural gradient), plenty of sunshine, and low-lying enough that desalination for greenhouse irrigation is economically feasible. And currently worth pennies-an-acre.
 
Note to self : buy options in the Atlas Mountains. Also check out the Chilean Coastal Desert - in the rain-shadow of the Andes (serious natural gradient), plenty of sunshine, and low-lying enough that desalination for greenhouse irrigation is economically feasible. And currently worth pennies-an-acre.
I knew about the Andean Desert, but without looking it up, didn't think it would have been hot enough. But I suppose that the important thing is the temperature difference between the base and the top of the tower, so it would probably work.
 
The real reason this project was scrapped, Drop Bears. Imagine the range they would get on this thing. Add to that the possibility of cannonballing into the largest mostly invisible lake in Australia. Can you just imagine what that invisible wave of water would do? The Drop Bears have just made this project too dangerous.
It's bad enough that potential visitors to Australia know about our sharks, snakes, jellyfish, crocodiles and spiders. Now you have to spill the beans on our carniverous, aggressive marsupial.
 
There's a nice article about this here. Cost-wise it is not such a bad idea. Assuming the estimates are correct (not always a great idea for construction) it is cheaper than current photo-votaics and comparable to some other renewables, although wind turbines and hydro-electric are cheaper. It also has the big advantage that the power is generated continuously and smoothly. The main problem is its experimental nature. Smaller towers have been tested with some success, but building the tallest structure in the world is always going to be a challenge. Since this is such a big project it takes a lot of resources. If it succeeds it'll be great, if not it will be a big blow for renewable energies in Australia.
 
As far as I nkow, solar cells still have a negative energy output, i.e. you put more energy into the production than you will ever receive during the lifetime of the cell.

Hence, plastering the desert in solar cells will buy you a massive net loss in energy.

The wikipedia article on solar cells has articles going both ways, but the cite for solar cells having negative output is relatively old, and it appears it's main point for negating other calculations is that they assume all power produced will be used, which is not the case for the off grid solar cell installations that make up most of the installations in place. But that argument wouldn't be valid for an on-grid installation.
 

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