Solar Chimney

[IanC]

Update on EnviroMission’s Arizona Solar Tower Project « Roy Spencer, PhD

interesting! not only that but it has a built in vacuum cleaner to clean up the sand, hahaha.

 

[flacaltenn]

That is "cool" -- kinda.. Wonder what the effect would be on local weather? That's a LOT of rising energy and is approaching the kind of updraft that feed storms.

Be REALLY cool if it increased the cumulus building potential at certain times of year...

I've thought of a similiar idea that works on the geographical distribution of high and low air pressure.

If you used an existing pipeline that has 30mm of mercury pressure at one end and 100 miles away, the barometer reads 29.88 --- AND if you PRIME IT to create a flow thru the pipe, it SHOULD sustain enough air volume to turn a turbine by itself..

Did the numbers once --- does anyone know if THIS has been prototyped???

 

[skookerasbil]

gay

 

[flacaltenn]

gay

Not gay.. That's the world's greatest turkey oven.

Just install those rotating spits like in the supermarket --- your in biz..

 

[IanC]

I like the idea. should be easy to mass produce and build with helicopters, low maintenance and no outside moving parts, predictible output. simple use of solar/wind by even simpler physics principles. what could be sweeter?

 

[flacaltenn]

The only problem I see is that you can't turn it off for maintenance.. You DO have massive turbines in the base and working on those with a fiery updraft in your face could be challenging..

I guess you can cap it to prevent flow -- but it's still not pleasant for doing repairs..

 

[Old Rocks]

The only problem I see is that you can't turn it off for maintenance.. You DO have massive turbines in the base and working on those with a fiery updraft in your face could be challenging..

I guess you can cap it to prevent flow -- but it's still not pleasant for doing repairs..

Well, that is what engineers are for, designing machinery so that it can be repaired. And, from 50 years of experiance working on the machinery they design, I really wish someone would inform them of that

 

[mamooth]

Two incredible high-tech engineering solutions:

A. Work at 4 AM, after the ground has cooled completely.

or

B. Have some sort of shutters on the intakes.

 

[Old Rocks]

two incredible high-tech engineering solutions:

A. Work at 4 am, after the ground has cooled completely.

Or

b. Have some sort of shutters on the intakes.

lol!

 

[RuthTickle]

Great idea, thanks for sharing.

 

[Wuwei]

A smaller prototype solar tower was built in Spain in the mid 1980's. See technical details at:
Solar Updraft Tower
It was 195 meters tall had a solar collector radius of 122 meters. Peak power output was 50 KW.

 

[Wuwei]

Photovoltaic is about 8 times more efficient than Solar Updraft. Since cost per KW is comparable to conventional solar power, it seems that photovoltaics would require only 1/8 the land use at the same cost. One maintenance problem is keeping the collectors clean in a desert with little rain. PV would have an advantage for maintenance.

Solar Chimneys Can Convert Hot Air to Energy, But Is Funding a Mirage?

Solar updraft is much less efficient than PV - only 1 to 2 percent of the energy that goes in to the tower gets converted into usable power, compared to PV's efficiency rate of 8 to 15 percent—but that doesn't matter.

If it is built big enough, a solar updraft plant could produce electricity at a cost per kilowatt-hour that is competitive with conventional solar power, Bergermann said, depending on the plant's financing. And because the only moving parts of a solar updraft plant are the turbines and generator, the overall cost of running and maintaining it is very low. ​