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The World's Most Efficient Solar Electricity Generator?

05/16/05

The World's Most Efficient Solar Electricity Generator?

Categories: Electronics, Society, Environment 08:16:18 pm

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Did you ever take a magnifying glass outside, and use it to concentrate the sun?s energy on a piece of paper, and burn it?

Popular Science magazine had a brief story about something that uses this ancient technique, and it could completely change the way we get our electrical power.

Stirling_Solar

A single dish designed by Stirling Energy Systems can power up to eight homes. And get this: A 10,000 square mile farm could meet the energy needs of the ENTIRE country, without pollution .

Imagine being able to shut down all the coal, gas, and nuclear power plants, and thus greatly reduce further pollution.

How does this system work? It does not use the traditional and inefficient solar cells we?re used to seeing. It doesn?t even directly convert solar energy to electrical energy.

The dish uses a concave array of mirrors to focus light on a central point, where the resulting heat causes compressed hydrogen to expand, driving a four-cylinder engine that turns a 25-kilowatt generator.

Right now, each 38-foot dish costs about $250,000, so it is not meant for the home user. It is intended to work on a larger scale, replacing full pollution causing power plants.

Sandia National Labs recently completed a six dish power plant. Early next year, California will have a 40 dish demonstration project completed.

The Energy Dept. says that solar-dish power could be cost-competitive with conventional sources by 2011.

21 comments

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Comments, Pingbacks:

Comment from: mike [Visitor] · http://huh

hi, one question. Where do you get the energy to make the hydrogen gas to begin with? you need a supply of hydrogen to support this machine.

Permalink 08/02/06 @ 15:28

Comment from: E [Visitor] · http://www.adsinmyhouse.com

I'm guessing that the hydrogen is stored and never lost in the machine. it probably heats it, where it expands to run the generator, then cools and returns to be heated. However, with the size of the hydrogen atom, you'd think that there would be loss somewhere. Anyhow, 25Kw of power is enough to make hydrogen for a whole bunch of generators. Get rid of the power plants and nuclear facilites now! Introduce this to Iraq, and get them out of the nuclear research for "energy" while we are all still living in freedom!

Permalink 08/02/06 @ 16:55

Comment from: Tom Murphy [Visitor]

Would it be profitable to buy one of these to power my house and feed the balance into the grid for funds. I live in the desert in AZ where the sun shines most of the time. What is the maintenance on this unit? Does it have to follow the sun? Why cant it be provided in a household version? Can the generator be activated when the sun doesnt shine?

Permalink 10/03/06 @ 19:04

Comment from: JC [Visitor]

your figure of 10,000 square miles is incorrect. according to the stirling site, it is 100 square miles.

http://www.stirlingenergy.com/faq.asp?Type=solar

it would take only 100 square miles of the stirling energy disks to supply the entire usa with electricity.

Permalink 04/08/07 @ 23:04

Comment from: Robert [Visitor]

JC...the site says 100 by 100....take take a calulator and times them together youd be
be surprised to see it equals 10000

Permalink 04/28/07 @ 22:31

Comment from: bob [Visitor]

this is gret thanks

Permalink 05/12/07 @ 21:25

Comment from: KC [Visitor]

JC is wrong. The URL he specifies does NOT say 100 square miles. It says a solar farm 100 miles by 100 miles would be enough to supply the U.S. 100 X 100 is 10,000 square miles.

Permalink 06/18/07 @ 15:03

Comment from: Arani Chakravarti [Visitor]

· http://www.poppikali.net.in

Since sunshine is free, I think we can trade off
some of the efficiency (may be go down to 10% from
SES's 30%) for much reduced cost. If a far cheaper
version can be built, everyone could use small
units and a vast amount of private funds could be
mobilised. If we wait for Governments to effect
a complete changeover, the fantastic amount of
money involved, and string pulling from big-oil
and other parties with vested interests, would
delay this changeover .... maybe till it is
too late. Can the companies be persuaded to build
less cutting-edge, cheaper (maybe less efficient)
and smaller units? At least as a short-term
emergency measure?

I would also like to draw the attention of
interested people to the solar chimney concept.
The site is http://www.enviromission.com.au

Permalink 06/26/07 @ 04:00

Comment from: Kevin [Visitor]

When the entire world learns to work together and build these farms all over the globe, and connect the power grids into one gigantic grid (don't tell me it can't be done, as I've used the internet, and that's all the internet is, really), then we will have solved our global power needs. After all, the sun always shines on one half of the world.

I don't know why people would even worry about what happens if the sun goes down, because it would just be coming up for someone else.

When it becomes night, we get power from "them" and when it is day, "they" get power from us.

That is the definition of global science, and we would see our own evolution if we could work together on this.

Permalink 08/11/07 @ 11:34

Comment from: mark [Visitor]

Nifty technology, but as they say, not exactly cost competitive. It's a nifty statistic that they could power the nation with a 100-mile by 100-mile solar farm, but the truth is that at $0.25 million per dish, that farm would cost about 12 trillion dollars. Could probably get the same amount of energy from about 1500 nuclear reactors, and they'd cost a whole lot less and take up far less space.

Permalink 09/03/07 @ 19:24

Comment from: Wil [Visitor]

Nuclear energy MAY be cheaper but, have you considered the external costs? The costs that aren't directly associated with operation. Such as, a meltdown?.....

Permalink 09/19/07 @ 11:35

Comment from: Jeremiah Nichol [Visitor]

· http://www.jfproductions.biz

Great, 12 trillion dollars. When can we start investing? I'm in.....I didn't invest in this war, but I'd be happy to start paying off a 12 trillion dollar debt if it promotes peace.

Permalink 09/30/07 @ 11:44

Comment from: T Nick [Visitor]

While some of the concepts stated above are simplistic. A world wide grid in not possible. We're talking tens of thousands of volts that have to be carried by high tension lines. There is a huge drop in energy thru electcrical transmission lines. The NET is low voltate and tavels via a host of methods (wire, satellite,cable, wireless, etc.)

Also, an interdependent system would rely of the Pollyanna belief that all cultures, governments and social systems would never have any conflicts or disrupt the global transmission system.

Permalink 10/01/07 @ 06:16

Comment from: Dave [Visitor]

This should be implemented on the moon.
I believe the south pole of the moon is always facing the sun.
If this is the case, you can collect the energy on the moon, then beam it down in the form of a concentrated laser beam.
Like the death star blaster.
As your part of the globe comes in view, you get a beam of light. The entire planet could be on a grid, giving you 24 hour supply.
This doesn't have to be a wired grid.
You can transfer energy via laser. Just make sure no no one flys in that beam.

Permalink 10/22/07 @ 14:39

Comment from: Jikki [Visitor]

Umm... 100x100 is 100^2 (100 square) miles. Bloody hell, you people are retarded. Even for 12 Trillion dollars it'd be worth it if it supplied the entire nation. If they spread is out so that it's not all concentrated in one space (bad weather or a natural disaster would really suck)it would be very practical.

Permalink 03/04/08 @ 13:19

Comment from: Dan Biwee [Visitor]

· http://onlineconversion.com/

Recent articles abound from the solar industry and I have tried to figure out why we don't have small farms popping up all over the place. Why do the power companies ignore this sustainable technology? My guess is that the money crunchers see a higher potential for profit in other technologies. Greed motivates the current of money flow. When solar power generation is more profitable than other technologies it will receive the investment that oil and natural gas enjoy now.
This particular technology is a hybrid technology. It allows the gas companies, and their subsidiary companies, to stay involved since hydrogen production today is most commonly derived from natural gas.

Permalink 04/02/08 @ 07:44

Comment from: Dan Kaker [Visitor]

I think that solar panels or dishes are sensitive to wind dammage or vandalism and are a big investment that is best left up to the utilities.

Permalink 05/01/08 @ 10:50

Comment from: BOB BLUNT [Visitor]

i like electricity it makes me skeet my pants!

Permalink 05/19/08 @ 11:09

Comment from: David Sixxe [Visitor]

Unfortunately, it may be fine as a proof of concept but it is no where near feasible in practical use. At $250K per dish, that is over $31K per home. Even if you amortize the cost, you are still neglecting to include maintenance or repair of the systems, which I could only imagine would cost at least $20K annually per dish and generator. Also, to gridtie these systems across the US would be costly enough, if you tried to gridtie across the world, the cost would be astronomical. That would leave storing energy for non-generating hours and since battery storage is roughly 75% efficient, that would eliminate 2 homes per dish, bringing the cost to just under 42K per home, not including the cost and maintenance of the storage systems. I could only imagine that total costs including delivery, amortization, maintenance and repairs of the total system would easily cost $7.5K-$9.5K per house per year.

Permalink 06/09/08 @ 02:14

Comment from: KristofU [Visitor]

· http://qbziz.wordpress.com

100 x 100 = 10000 square mile(s)
no more, no less
it's not 100 miles squared or whatever.

You have a width of 100 miles, and a depth of 100 miles. Gee, I wonder what the surface area would be. So basic math says : do width x depth and there you go. This is clearly 10000 as 100 x 100 = 10000. However, now we have a different quantity (and unit). We have gone from length (mile) to area (square mile).
So actually it should be 10000 square mile. However square miles is also correct.

Permalink 07/10/08 @ 12:34

Comment from: DungFu [Visitor]

lol JC's comment made me laugh...what did u take? 1st grade math and fail lol...and instead of focusing on how much a farm would cost as a one time fee how about thinking about building every home from now on with solar which will make the home cost about 10-20,000 more on the cost of the home and help everyone in the long run.

Permalink 07/18/08 @ 12:50

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