"SunCatcher" Solar Thermal Power Debut. This Isn't Photovoltaic [PV] Solar.

Discussion in 'Current Events' started by Silhouette, Feb 12, 2012.

  1. Silhouette

    Silhouette New Member

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    This might be a good place to invest. They are currently setting up the grid systems. Had an opportunity to watch them set one of the systems in place last year with helicopters. Pretty cool to watch. BigOil and BigNuke no longer have the corner on producing steam. Lots of sun in the West, Midwest, Southwest and Southern states. Enough to juice this country and sell to Canada besides.
     
  2. Silhouette

    Silhouette New Member

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    Didn't get close enough to see the plant itself but my guess is that the system looks something like this:

    [​IMG]
     
  3. ASeriousMan

    ASeriousMan New Member

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    I'm hoping stuff like this succeeds its 2012, (*)(*)(*)(*) it. We should have flying cars by now.


    inb4 'we would have if not for obama'
     
  4. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    For about 6 hours a day, what do you do the other 18?
     
  5. Silhouette

    Silhouette New Member

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    Use a carbon backup. Place solar thermal in tandem with carbon backup for the other part of the 7.5 hours into darkness solar thermal plants are also capable of producing for. After all, these are the lowest-use hours of all. Imagine the utter reduction of the carbon footprint only used as a miniscule backup for solar thermal?

    Introducing the absurd to paint out a simliarity eh?

    Haven't seen that one used in awhile. Too bad these plants are already operational:

    Maybe invest in Siemens?

    Erlangen, Germany, 2012-Jan-25

     
  6. ASeriousMan

    ASeriousMan New Member

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    I was actually agreeing with you in a comical sort of fashion, but knowing the usual tone of most stick in the mud forumgoers here I don't hold it against you.
     
  7. DA60

    DA60 Banned

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    We'll see...
     
  8. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    So you have to have a full blown carbon based plant TOO and the sun is only high enough and not being filtered too much by the atmosphere for less than half the day for the solar plant to operate at full capacity.
    Oh you mean when all the lights come on and people go home and cook and use appliances, use their hot water and turn their heat up in winter and AC in summer? OH and when they charge all those electric cars they will be buying?


    Imagine the cost of having to run both systems at less than 24 capacity since the carbon plant will sit idle when you are running the solar plant. How many people are going to invest in building a carbon plant that won't be run 24/7? That plant will be built by selling bonds and stock, those people expect a good return on their money plus you still have your overhead you have to pay. And you are going to run it about 60% capacity? Then you have to charge more for your electricity.

    How have you factored that into your scenario?
     
  9. Silhouette

    Silhouette New Member

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    Define "full blown"? Do you mean tied into the same grid?

    That's what I'm talking about. We shift power sources around all the time. Are you saying that instead of doing that we should ignore the carbon reduction of solar thermal power plants operating for most of the year's high-use time? That would be patently absurd..

    Hey, I was going to ask the predictable "why solar thermal won't work/isn't viable/ ist stupid/far out etc. etc. crowd" something. It's probably just nothing but some silly legal loophole but I was wondering why I found this page and this excerpt on the Siemen's investment information page from the link on my last post?

    Can you guys tell me specifically which "applicable law" applies to not being able to invest in solar thermal's enterprises through Siemens if you live in the USA, Australia, Canada or Japan? Just curious how that works in a "free market capitalism" way?

    Thanks.
     
  10. stonehorse

    stonehorse New Member

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    As I walk around I see windmills. In some places the entire horizon is filled with monster windmills. They all generate electricity, when the wind blows.

    If 24 hour, seven day a week production was of overriding importance these wind farms would not have been built.

    I guess some realize that oil and gas are finite resources that may soon be too expensive to burn up the way we're doing. We have to use all our renewable resources and can't get obsessive about one system that does it all.
     
  11. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Full blown, what don't you understand? It will have to be able to supply 130% capacity as all power generating plants do.

    On a bright sunny day it is going to be sitting there not making any money. And of course on those cloudy days and at night the solar is going to be sitting there not making you any money
     
  12. HB Surfer

    HB Surfer Well-Known Member Past Donor

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  13. Flyflicker

    Flyflicker New Member

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    I say, let's build some of them, right here. We have plenty of sunshine, and we use a lot of electricity whenever the sun is shining to run those air conditioners. If electricity can be produced economically using this technology, by all means, let's do it. What do we do at night? Well, let's build that new nuclear plant that people are talking about (and talking, and talking, and doing nothing).

    If we had talked hydro to death the way we're doing solar, wind, and so on, that would never have been built either.
     
  14. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Daytime is peak power use time in all markets.

    Businesses, manufacturing plants, smelters, and air conditioning use massive energy.

    The daytime power is worth 5 to 10 times the value of night time generated power. The utilities give massive discounts to businesses that will use power at night instead of during the day.

    The utilities have also spent BILLIONS building systems to transfer power generation from night to do, like entire mountain reservoirs where the nighttime coal plant operations pump water UP the hill to be available to run generators for peak power DURING THE DAYTIME.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grid_energy_storage#Pumped_water
     
  15. Flyflicker

    Flyflicker New Member

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    We have a similar plant near here. One of the guys who worked on it told me that it cost a billion dollars, but that it generates electricity worth a million a day. That works out to a 36.5% annual return on the investment. Sounds pretty good.

    Why not a solar plant, or several of them, connected to a hydro plant? Sounds to me like a plan.
     
  16. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I'm just curious why you would post an article from 2010, recommending folks invest in a project where the reflector maker filed bankruptcy?

    Hope you didn't take too bad of a beating on your investment. :razz:
     
  17. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So now we're supposed to man and maintain 2 power plants when one Nuclear plant would way out produce it?
     
  18. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Yep, more nuclear and more bio-diesels and more of our own oil and natural gas. Leave the solar and wind to the folly of those willing to pay the full cost of it.
     
  19. Bluesguy

    Bluesguy Well-Known Member Donor

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    Not necessarily, large manufacturing plants don't just shut down at 5PM they run two or three shifts, everyone goes home and turns on the big screens, their high wattage sound systems, washes and drys their clothes, turn up the heat or AC and if you have your way plugging in all their cars to recharge.

    "Traditionally, peak times include the hours between 5:00 to 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. This is because people are waking up in the morning, taking showers, turning on TVs for the news, using hair dryers, and cranking up the coffee maker and skillet for breakfast. Then in the afternoons, they are coming home from work or school and again adjusting the thermostat, turning on TVs, cooking dinner, washing clothes and using computers. For Wiregrass Electric, the record peak demand -- 131,100 KVA -- was on Jan. 11, 2010, at 7:00 a.m. when the temperature dropped to 18 degrees and everyone cranked up their heat pumps to get warm while getting ready for school and work. Each year, Wiregrass Electric continues to have a winter peak."
    http://wiregrass.coop/myEnergy/conservation/peakDemand.aspx

    The sun ain't high enough between 5-8am and 4-7pm for solar to operate at anywhere near capacity.

    Oh how efficient, lets expend all the power to pump water up a hill to have it come back down. Where is that power going to come from? OH you have to build the solar even BIGGER.

    The fact is you have to have a full blown fossil system just sitting there for when solar cannot provide power which is often.
     
  20. Taxcutter

    Taxcutter New Member

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    How much of a Department of Energy subsidy does this one need?
     
  21. Jebediah

    Jebediah Banned

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    Candle. Hamster on a wheel. Lot's of things.
     
  22. Silhouette

    Silhouette New Member

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    We were watching helicopters deliver High-tension powerline towers to the SDG&E solar thermal facility being constructed near Arizona just a month or two ago. Sorry your dates are wrong.

    Invest in SDG&E. :sun:
     
  23. Professor Peabody

    Professor Peabody Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    They aren't my dates, go back and re-read my post.

    Are you saying the project went forward with Stirling Solar reflectors? They went bankrupt. Were are the maintenance and replacement parts going to come from when the Manufacturer went bankrupt? I brought this very thing up long ago. They have just purchased a white elephant where maintenance parts will need to be custom made or the entire reflector system will need to be replaced.

    Looks like they already are.....like it or not! This is WAY too funny but I like the idea of making solar customers pay more for their ideology. You think Solar is such a good idea, bring your Visa Card! I'm sure they will gladly pay double or more for their power just to save the world!:twisted:
     
  24. fiddlerdave

    fiddlerdave Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Sure thing!

    Now, if we just could get coal-burning customers to pay for the garbage and poisons and environmental damage THEY cause by dumping pollution in the air and water, and wiping out entire mountains, watersheds, and habitats.

    Not everyone likes mercury in their fish.
     
  25. darckriver

    darckriver New Member Past Donor

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    Every contribution helps unless it's costs are so prohibitive as to place it in the snake oil category. CSP has potential - PV has a bad rep. As good ole hardcore leftist Chem Engineering Prof. Channing Robertson (Stanford U.) said: "There has never been a solar cell made that didn't require more energy to produce than could ever be returned in its projected lifetime."
     

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