Posted on 02/06/2003 3:06:09 PM PST by DestroyEraseImprove
An Australian power company is planning to build the world's tallest structure - a solar tower - in the middle of the outback. The project is part of a global campaign to encourage the use of more renewable energy.
Enviromission says the tower, at a proposed height of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), will be more than twice the size of the world's current tallest freestanding building, the Canadian National Tower in Toronto.
The one billion Australian dollar (US $0.56 bn) project is being backed by the Australian Government, and is expected to be completed in 2006 in the remote Buronga district in New South Wales.
If successful, the structure could provide enough electricity for 200,000 homes. It will save more than 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases which may otherwise have been emitted by coal- or oil-fired power stations.
Enviromission chief executive officer Roger Davey told Reuters news agency: "Initially people told me 'you're a dreamer', there's no way anything that high can be built, there's no way it can work".
"But now we have got to the point where it's not if it can be built, but when it can be built."
Huge monolith
The proposed structure will have a width similar in size to a football field and will stand in the centre of a huge glass roof spanning 7km (4.3 miles).
The sun will heat the air under the glass roof, and as it rises an updraft will be created in the tower, allowing air to be sucked through 32 turbines.
The turbines will then spin, generating power 24 hours a day.
The tower was developed by German structural engineers Schlaich Bergerman, who built a 200-metre-high demonstration power plant in Manzanares, Spain, in 1982.
The tower proposal has received the support of the Australian and New South Wales governments, which have defined it as a project of national significance.
The authorities plan to fit the tower with high intensity obstacle lights to prevent aircraft from crashing into it.
MELBOURNE: The world's tallest man-made structure could soon be towering over the Australian outback as part of a plan to capitalise on the global push for greater use of renewable energy.
By 2006, Australian power company EnviroMission Ltd hopes to build a 1000m solar tower in southwest New South Wales state, a structure that would be more than twice the height of Malaysia's Petronas Towers, the world's tallest buildings.
Currently, the world's tallest free-standing structure is the Canadian National Tower in Toronto at 553m.
The 200mW solar tower, which will cost A$1 billion (NZ$1.07 billion) to build, will be of a similar width to a football field and will stand in the centre of a massive glass roof spanning seven kilometres in diameter.
Despite its size, the technology is simple – the sun heats air under the glass roof, which slopes upwards from three metres at its outer perimeter to 25 metres at the tower base.
As the hot air rises, a powerful updraft is also created by the tower that allows air to be continually sucked through 32 turbines, which spin to generate power 24 hours a day.
"Initially people told me 'you're a dreamer', there's no way anything that high can be built, there's no way it can work," EnviroMission chief executive officer Roger Davey said.
"But now we have got to the point where it's not if it can be built, but when it can be built."
EnviroMission hopes to begin construction on the solar tower before the end of the year and be generating enough electricity to supply 200,000 homes around the beginning of 2006.
The company also hopes the project will save more than 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year that might otherwise have been emitted through coal or oil-fired power stations.
The company has signed agreements with Australian-listed Leighton Holdings Ltd and US-listed Energen Corp to determine the commercial feasibility of the solar tower, which Time Magazine recently voted among the "Best Inventions of the Year".
WORLD SIGNIFICANCE
The tower has received the support of the Australian and New South Wales governments, which have defined it as a project of national significance.
EnviroMission plans to build the tower in remote Buronga district in New South Wales. The district is near the border with Victoria state and is 25km northeast of Mildura town.
It will generate about 650 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year towards Australia's mandated renewable energy target, which requires electricity retailers to supply 9500 GWh of renewable energy a year by 2010.
The Electricity Supply Association has said A$48 billion needs to be invested in electricity infrastructure during the next two decades to meet the country's growing demand. Davey said he is keen to keep the tower's costs as low as possible to ensure its success.
"We have proved that it does work and that it can be built, but what we have got to get a handle on is the cost and we are working very strongly through that now," Davey said.
The tower – originally known as the solar chimney – is the invention of German structural engineers Schlaich Bergerman, who constructed a 200 metre high demonstration power plant in Manzanares, Spain, in 1982.
The 50 kilowatt plant produced electricity for seven years and then closed down after having proved the technology worked. Schlaich Bergerman now work with EnviroMission.
The project has already been given clearance by the Civil Aviation Safety Authority of Australia and will be fitted with high intensity obstacle lights to warn aircraft in the area.
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Agreement with Schlaich Bergermann Solar GMBH
EnviroMission Limited announce it has entered into a formal agreement with Schlaich Bergermann Solar Gmbh (Schlaich Bergermann) under which Schlaich Bergermann will provide full design services to develop site specific plans for the worlds first Solar Tower renewable energy power station in Australia.
As part consideration for its services, Schlaich Bergermann has agreed to be issued one million fully paid ordinary shares in EnviroMission for the "tender design" services it will provide to the company. In addition, as part consideration for its services, Schlaich Bergermann has agreed to be issued ten million fully paid ordinary shares in EnviroMission for the "detailed design" services it will provide to EnviroMission.
The 11 million shares will be issued at an equivalent of 80 cents Australian per share.
Upon satisfaction of each part of the relevant services, EnviroMission will issue the one million shares and subsequently, the ten million shares. It is expected that part of the services relating to the issue of 1,000,000 shares will not be completed until mid 2002.
Schlaich Bergermann, leading consulting engineers from Stuttgart Germany are world leaders in lightweight construction, are the original developers of the Solar Tower renewable energy technology, that has to date had in excess of A$75 M and 25 years of research invested in its development.
The agreement with Schlaich Bergermann brings vast experience, engineering knowledge and credibility to the project and helps bring this major development closer to commercial reality.
Shareholder approval will be sought if it is required at the time of issue of each parcel of shares.
Schlaich Bergermann built the pilot plant in Manzanares Spain which proved the technology. The technology has since been further examined by one of Australia's leading engineering consultancy firms, Sinclair Knight Merz who concluded the plant can be built and that the technology works.
Over the past three years significant advances have been made by EnviroMission and the adaptation of the technology to Australian specific criteria has begun.
The optimisation process is currently underway and is expected to be completed in early 2002, paving the way for Tender Design to begin.
When built, the Solar Tower will be the largest single renewable energy plant in operation (excluding hydroelectric).
The formal agreement with Schlaich Bergermann satisfies Milestone 1 as described in the company's prospectus dated 12 July 2001.
Ends.
Stephen Graves Chief Executive Officer
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Solar Chimney: World First for Australia?
Broadcast on Saturday 29/09/01
Summary:
The world’s first large-scale solar thermal power station could be up and running in Australia by 2005. Set to be the tallest human-made structure on the planet, the proponents say the solar tower will cost $700-million to build and produce enough power to fuel a regional city.
Transcript:
Alexandra de Blas: Now to a whacky new scheme to generate solar energy.
The world’s first large-scale solar thermal power station could be up and running in Australia by 2005. Set to be the tallest human-made structure on the planet, the proponents say the solar tower will cost $700-million to build and produce enough power to fuel a regional city.
It sounds like a hare-brained scheme, but Environmission, the small company behind it, has got some high profile supporters. The first plant is likely to be located near Mildura. It will consist of two parts: a massive circular solar collector at the base, and a giant tower reaching into the sky that’ll produce power by moving hot air.
The designer, Professor Jorg Schlaich from the University of Stuttgart, has also developed a test model in Spain, and he’s convinced it’ll work.
I caught up with him and Des Haberman from Environmission to find out more.
Des Haberman: The tower will be somewhere near one kilometre, which obviously this will make it the largest man-made structure in the world. It will have a 1,000 metre reinforced concrete tower in the middle of a very large greenhouse in the order of 5 kilometres diameter.
The actual solar collector will be made of glass or plastic, but certainly in my layman’s terms, it’s a simple technology where air underneath the collector will be heated, and as we all know, hot air rises, and it’ll be drawn by the roof sloping towards the base of the tower, and at the tower the wind speed will reach 15 metres a second, which is quite strong, and the updraft of the tower will cause the kinetic energy, which obviously then drives the turbines at the base of the tower.
Alexandra de Blas: Now the base of this tower will be the size of the MCG.
Des Haberman: That’s correct, the base of the tower will be something between 170 to 200 metres, which makes it as wide as the MCG which is quite fascinating. The solar collector would be something in the order of three or four times the CBD area of Melbourne.
The size is required to allow it to produce 200 megaWatts of energy, and of course 200 megaWatts is a huge amount of energy from a solar power plant or any power plant outside a coal-fired plant. There’s enough power to feed 200,000 typical Australian homes, and this would feed all the homes of Hobart. This would be enough to supply the entire town’s needs, including the industrial needs.
Alexandra de Blas: Well Professor Schlaich, you’re the engineer behind the solar tower; why does the structure need to be so big?
Jorg Schlaich: Well first I would say it’s not enormous, it’s just 1,000 metres high but it’s a very simple tube. It’s a tube, of which the wall thickness is 25 centimetres, so it’s a very light and simple structure. The height is simply needed from the physical fact that the updraft is proportional to the height, and to be economical and to make best use of this heat, we want to build this tower, this tube, as high as possible, and it could even be higher, but we feel 1,000 metres is the right height.
Alexandra de Blas: But how do you know it will work?
Jorg Schlaich: Well you see, over thousands and millions of years the chimney effect has been there. If you make a fire then the smoke will climb up, and that is the physical effect, so it has to work, there’s no chance it won’t. We will combine three simple and well known principles: the Greenhouse, the chimney and the turbine, and all three are proven over centuries.
Alexandra de Blas: So you’re quite confident that this tower will not become a white elephant?
Jorg Schlaich: I’m not confident, I am sure.
Alexandra de Blas: Why are you building it in Australia and not in Europe?
Jorg Schlaich: Well basically we would be happy to build it anywhere where there is ample free land and we have sun. And this could be in the Sahara Desert but we are very happy that the Australians came and said, ‘No, it should be our desert, we want to do it, we have the courage to do it’ because you need courage, it’s a big investment. All the technology is here, the capability is here to finance and organise such a project. But if this is done successfully here, it will have a tremendous impact on other countries.
Alexandra de Blas: Well Des Haberman, it’s going to cost $700-million to build. What’s the time frame for construction?
Des Haberman: The time frame for the construction, to actually build it, would be around two years. We’re looking at doing a design phase over the next 18 months, we’re looking just to commence construction at the end of the Year 2003 and have the first site up and running in 2005.
And this obviously then starts to fit very nicely into the Australian renewable energy program, our needs to meet the government 2% mandated targets of 9-1/2-thousand gigaWatt hours by the year 2010. So Environmission is obviously establishing a major part of that program for the Australian government, and the Australian industry. And we would be looking to produce by the year 2010 something like 30% of the legislated need for renewable energy in this country.
Through the process of getting what we call obviously renewable energy credits, they are worth somewhere between $35 a megaWatt hour to up to somewhere round $50 a megaWatt hour. That is the incentive that the government now has put into the industry which has made projects like ours viable, and obviously now industries are now being formed to take advantage of that energy price for those credits.
Alexandra de Blas: Des Haberman, from Environmission, speaking about his surreal plans for a gigantic solar power station in Australia.
Guests on this program: Des Haberman General Manager Corporate Relations, Enviromission
evrn.admin@enviromission.com.au
Professor Jorg Schlaich Schlaich Bergermann and Partner Structural engineering consultants based in Stuttgart, Germany
Further information: Environmission Australian renewable energy firm http://www.enviromission.com.au
Schlaich Bergermann and Partner Structural engineering firm behind the Solar Chimney's design http://www.sbp.de/
Reporter:
Alexandra de Blas
Exactly and here in lies a great opportunity for third world countries that have no access or ability to create high-tech products and supply their population with energy.
No, I think the costs are only going to be about 4 times the cost of regular electricity in that area. From my post to an earlier thread:
EnviroMission estimates total unit revenue for renewable energy in the Victorian pool at A$92 per MWh by 2005 (A$45 pool price, A$47 renewable energy certificate price). Revenues for Solar Tower electricity are expected to be enhanced by A$18 in premium for locational benefits, and A$5-15 in premium for peak sales. The electricity market appears to have stabilized over 2001, with average prices around $A25-30 per MWh,
http://www.aie.org.au/pubs/enviromission.htm
You'd pump a small quantity of water to the top of the tower and "mist" it into the top, where it would cool the air and would sink. Power would be extracted by wind turbines at the base. It would also put enough mosture in the air to change the local climate (they wanted to build it a mile high).
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