Comments on: Base Load Solar Power

By: etbe

etbe — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 11:35:31 +0000

S: Part of the solution to the energy problems is to have large distributed grids. There are currently plans to have solar power from Africa supply Europe. If you have solar power stations spanning a continent then any event which disrupts sunlight over an entire continent for a week is probably going to be a bigger problem for you than the lack of electricity. Apart from areas close to the poles, the only way you can have a lack of sunlight over a large area for a week would be from a “dinosaur killer” meteorite or nuclear war.

Nuclear power is not intermediate because it takes longer to build the nuclear power stations than it takes to build renewable energy sources.

The people who advocate nuclear power generally don’t understand the safety issues related to nuclear power plants and have not even considered the terrorism issue.

By: S

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:15:47 +0000

The main drawback with this as far as i can see, is that we are still at mercy to the weather. If its going to be cloudy for a week or more, and as a result these plants will not be operating at capacity, can you really call it a base load solution?

People never talk about intermediate alternatives like nuclear power, which gives off almost no greenhouse emmissions, and we have uranium in abundance, but we just need to build a place to store the nuclear waste. Ironically the people who make the most noise in the nuclear debate are those who cannot even explain in detail how nuclear fission works, just that “nuclear is bad, mmkay”

By: M. Ali

M. Ali — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 22:48:37 +0000

Base load solar power statioon is feasible at (on current costs) at 65% of the diesel energy cost.
fresh water can be produced at less than a fraction of the standalone Desal plant if integrated with the power plant.
The overall efficiency (estimate) is betther than 60%.
The water consumption within the power plant (solar /steam) is only makeup water as the cycle is close loop.
It is the energy in the condensate that is recovered in distillation.
the energy required for distillaton is minimal approx 4kWe/cu.m water.
M. Ali

By: Rob

Rob — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 03:22:59 +0000

What’s the efficiency of this process?
As a storage mechanism, how does it compare, for example, to simply pumping water up a hill into storage during off-peak periods and releasing it through turbines during peak periods/overnight?

This system is already used in the current power grid.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wivenhoe_Power_Station%2C_Queensland

By: etbe

etbe — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 11:20:27 +0000

ARP: Desalination is expensive no matter how you do it, and I believe that distillation is not the cheapest method, although combining distillation and steam production (go-generation) does reduce the cost.

By: ARP

ARP — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 20:10:37 +0000

How can I get more information on the system? I guess that part of the process’ heat can be used to evaporate seawater and use the resulting distilled water to run the steam power generation, right?

Is there a patent in this process?

Thanks