Posted on 01/03/2003 4:33:43 PM PST by Brett66
Australia Plans 1-Km High Structure, Taller Than CN Tower
Thu Jan 2, 9:11 PM ET
By Michelle Nichols
MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The world's tallest man-made structure could soon be towering over the Australian outback as part of a plan to capitalize on the global push for greater use of renewable energy.
By 2006, Australian power company EnviroMission Ltd hopes to build a 1,000 m (3,300 feet) 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 553 meters.
The 200 megawatt solar tower, which will cost A$ 1 billion ($563 million) to build, will be of a similar width to a football field and will stand in the center of a massive glass roof spanning seven kilometers in diameter.
Despite its size, the technology is simple -- the sun heats air under the glass roof, which slopes upwards from three meters at its outer perimeter to 25 meters 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 told Reuters.
"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 U.S.-listed Energen Corp to determine the commercial feasibility of the solar tower, which Time Magazine recently voted among the "Best Inventions of the Year."
NATIONAL 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 25 km (15 miles) northeast of Mildura town.
It will generate about 650 gigawatt hours (GWh) a year toward Australia's mandated renewable energy target, which requires electricity retailers to supply 9,500 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 meter 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.
Let's see... An essentially flat circular glass building with 414.2 MILLION square feet of glass... What size army of window washers is it going to take to keep this thing clean as dirt and dust settle down on it?
And one good hail storm could ruin their whole day.
The homeless guy presently hassling you for a windshield wash at every stoplight, would be a good start. Him, and a really big bottle of Windex.
Unfortunately it won't happen because for this to technology to be built would mean the end of the Kyoto treaty. Cheap clean electricity = no more fossil fuel 'crisis' = no more dismantling the US economy in favor of third-world redistributionist socialism and the European style punitive taxes. You're stuck with the homeless guy.
Five hundred and sixty three million American dollars to build a plant that produces only 20% of the power that a 'standard' fossil or nuclear plant develops....
What a fine investment.
What an innovative use of real estate.
--Boris
Solar power is anything but cheap. It may be "clean" but it is about the most expensive way to generate power there is. This is because solar energy is so dilute.
I have given the calculation zillions of times here, but for example (without the details) you would need 150 square miles of solar cells to supply California's energy needs. If solar cells cost one cent per square centimeter, it would cost $300 billion, not counting the cost of land, maintenance, and homeless guys wiping bird droppings off the panels.
I can give the detailed calcs if you want; I'm just tired of doing it over and over and over...
--Boris
They basically need $2800 per customer to pay off the cost of building it. Figure $80 a month from the customer. In five years, that will be $960 million to pay off for the cost of building it, plus upkeep, staffing, etc... Probably still not broken even that point, but getting close to it.
This is a great answer for rural customers. Clean energy. Low maintenance... Very simple parts, so repairs are a snap. Just because it is green, doesn't make it bad.
Let us assume this technology works as they say it does.
Figure 10 million households in California. 40 football field sizes of these bad boys in the mojave desert. Dump the coal generators and keep El Diablo on line with cleaner nuke power to supply much of the power needed in the evening.
40 billion. But in a state that already is 35 billion in debt for this year... 40 billion isn't really that much money. It will be cheaper in the long run. Maintenance is going to be a lot lower. The air much cleaner. Couple that with the switch to hybrid cars, and the state gets quite a bit cleaner.
They are worried about greenhouse gases, but here, they are merely bypassing the greenhouse gases and directly creating global warming using a huge greenhouse!
Sigh. I use solar cells as representative and because that is the technology so frequently proposed. Here goes.
The "solar constant" in Earth orbit is about 1370 watts per square meter. On the ground, at the equator, at high noon, no clouds, it is almost exactly 1000 watts (1 kW) per square meter.
Solar cells are ~20% efficient, so you get 200 watts (electric) from solar cells. But there is night, so the effective output is roughly 100 watts per square meter.
California uses (electricity only!) 40,000 megawatts 24/7/365. That is 4 times ten to the tenth watts.
4E10/100 = 4E8 square meters. That is 4.3E9 square feet, or 154 square miles.
Notice that this assumes you are on the equator, which CA isn't.
Now. Solar cells could be pushed to maybe 30% efficiency, and then you would need 2/3 of 154 square miles or 103 square miles.
I will bet you anything this solar breeze machine is no more efficient than the best solar cells...Carnot's law and all that.
See?
--Boris
Yes, but if you put it in an out of the way place, the tourists are going to waste a lot of energy driving to see it. Maybe the tower will be able to power an electric train to and from the nearest city, so that tourists can take the electric train there. Then they can see the tower that powers the train, and finally the tower's electricity can take them and the train back to the city. Then when they get off the train, they can all say to each other, "That was pretty pointless."
One problem I've always had with nuclear is that the true cost of generation is usually hidden. The cost of de-commissioning plants is astronomical, as is disposal of expended waste.
I'd be curious as to what the comparative expenses would be. How much per household (average) is the cost of the plant and the fuel used per annum? I know the South Texas Nuclear Plant nearly bankrupted Austin, TX with cost overruns, although the generating capacity far exceeds what this would produce.
Hey Boris! I know you're negative on this, but you seem to understand a lot about the industry, so how much would they save on not having to purchase fuel? Would it be enough to offset construction costs?
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