Arizona Solar Tower: Twice As Tall As The Empire State Building

A gigantic solar tower is coming to the Arizona desert. Once running, it'll produce enough electricity to power 150,000 homes.

The huge structure -- it will be twice as tall as the Empire State Building -- will cost 750 million to build. However, once completed, it will cost no money to run.

Comments

[Q Farms]

12:39 AM on 09/04/2011

Nice technology
http://pakagri.blogspot.com/2011/09/solar-bottle-lights-in-philippines.html

[farmilyman]

04:22 AM on 08/02/2011

Odd to see something progressive coming out of AZ.

[Genep34]

09:33 AM on 08/02/2011

indeed

[slinkybro]

01:37 PM on 08/01/2011

How will it cost no money to run? Won't anyone work there? Isn't there any maintenance? Maybe they mean no money for fuel. But then why be misleading?

[SarahCuda2]

12:32 PM on 08/01/2011

Arizona is one thing but Pennsylvania, Kansas and New Jersey? Nothing can grow under this thing. If living plant life has to be sacrificed for it then it's just wrong. SAVE THE TREES!

Also, in those other three states, what happens in the winter? Who gets the job cleaning off all the snow? How much generating can it do in the winter when the sun is low? If the chimney is going to be that tall, (and obviously NOT weigh anywhere near what a skyscraper weighs), then it's going to need ENORMOUSLY long stay cables for the wind load. Pilots certainly aren't going to like having these things around.

One more thing - are MY tax dollars subsidizing this boondoggle?

[loco48]

04:35 PM on 08/01/2011

Sara, you are so negative. If thomas edison had your attitude, we would be burning candles.

[SarahCuda2]

06:27 PM on 08/03/2011

Edison invented stuff to MAKE A PROFIT - not suck on the government *** of politically motivated subsidies.

I am firmly against anything that ACTUALLY threatens wildlife and forests. People running Audubon, Sierra and WWF have sold their souls to Satan kowtowing to the sacred chalice of 'saving the planet' from man-made global warming that isn't even happening. Wind mills slaughter birds plus they are their required power transmission lines and disrupt other forms of wild life. Solar panels displace plant life. You can't put one under a tree - you have to cut down the tree. Even people who put them on their roof have to cut down any tree in their yard that gets in the way of the sun light.

[The Shadow]

08:39 PM on 08/01/2011

Sara, I think you’ll find that this tower is designed for the empty spaces in the desert.

http://www.gizmag.com/enviromission-solar-tower-arizona-clean-energy-renewable/19287/

[SarahCuda2]

06:31 PM on 08/03/2011

LIFE is .. everywhere, including most 'desert' spaces in Arizona. If you want to put them in the Mohave salt flats or on barren mountain tops okay - good luck with the maintenance of them and power transmission lines...

[stgir]

10:22 AM on 08/01/2011

Can anybody answer this for me?
If I understand this correctly the hot air will travel up through the tower and will be released at the top. Thats a lot of hot air being concentrated into a small area, what impact will all that hot air have on the surrounding environment? Is there not any concern with that? Just wondering.

[Edward Standley]

05:40 PM on 08/01/2011

Typically, these are closed systems that heat water to steam to run a turbine. The steam is then condensed and the cycle begins again.

[Genep34]

09:35 AM on 08/02/2011

that is not the concept here

[efreilly]

12:18 AM on 08/02/2011

Not sure it would be all that different than cooling towers from nuclear plants, or even coal-fired plants. Just guessing, though. Surely there is a downside -- minor as it may be.

[European1919]

02:35 AM on 08/01/2011

KEWL! Way to go ;-)))

[ThinkCreeps]

01:21 AM on 08/01/2011

A GW of power comes from just 1 square kilometer of solar-heated area. For 1GW of kinetic energy flow up the chimney, you need a 100-m diameter column of air moving at 60 meters per second (200 mph). It's all down to being able to reach a wind this fast in the tower.

While this isn't completely unreasonable, you need very tough turbines. If the turbines extracted 10% of the kinetic energy of the wind, it would need a 100-m diameter flow with a speed of 130 meters per second (400 mph), for a GW, which seems a tough challenge.

A spanish test with a 200m-tall 10m-diameter tower and a 125-m radius collector yielded 50kW, so it seems relatively unlikely that scaling by about 10 in linear size, and thus 100 in solar heating would yield 1GW (for 150,0000 homes), which is 20,000 times more power.

If it was as easy as the claim, it would surely have been done on a large scale already.

[efreilly]

12:20 AM on 08/02/2011

Probably making it sound easier than it is to garner support. Doesn't mean it can't be done though.

[ThinkCreeps]

01:37 AM on 08/02/2011

It can certainly be built, although whether for just $750m is unclear.

I am deeply doubtful that it can produce enough power for the quoted 150,000 homes, unless each home consumes less than 1kW rather than 10kW.

[trueblueredstater]

11:14 AM on 07/31/2011

Apparently, I am not the only one annoyed that since the merger, HP has had a LOT more video...and especially videos that auto-open, chewing up what little bandwidth I have.

Please - HP! Give US the choice of downloading video or reading text....not everyone has a 5Mbps fiber-optic cable to their house - some of us are lucky to get lower-end DSL.
For us the worst is the streaming video that you cannot pause to wait for the complete download.

[changemaid]

10:39 AM on 07/31/2011

i love this idea. free to run for 80 years is wonderful.l

[yahooserious]

09:32 AM on 07/31/2011

I want solar panels in my back yard!! We have plenty of room.... Where do I start?

[loco48]

10:50 AM on 07/31/2011

Buy the equipment from an online wholesale solar distributor. Find a certified solar electrition and sub contract it out. The panels will work better on the roof unless you have at least 1/2 acre. I priced a grid tied system 3KW for about $12,000 (parts) that should do an 1800 sq. ft house. you can depending on the state get rebates and tax credits both state and fed.
Watch out for these big retail solar companies, the will rip you off. The system I just mentioned was quoted (average) around 28,000 (installed price) from these big solar companies.

[yahooserious]

08:09 AM on 08/01/2011

Hey.... thanks! This will be a good project this winter. Our back yard is about 1/2 acre. Wish we could have an artist build solar panel 'trees'.... An Austin artist did & it's great.

[Tom Bosschaert]

07:27 AM on 07/31/2011

There's some interesting ways to improve the viability of solar updraft towers, and the working of both the towers and their 'extensions' shown here: http://www.except.nl/consult/SolarUpdraftTower/solar_updraft_research.html

[SeenItBefore]

06:10 PM on 07/30/2011

30 odd years ago this concept was previewed in Popular Science. Except it worked in reverse. The tower would rise to a point where the temperature differential was such that the COLD air would fall and spin the turbines.

Additional benefit would be realized when the sub-zero air hits the desert floor, it would condense an enormous amount of water to be used to irrigate nearby truck farms.

[changemaid]

10:41 AM on 07/31/2011

perhaps you could repost PS article and or find it and foward it to all newspapers, congress members, etc.. interesting.. I will have to find the article..This sounds like another great idea.

[loco48]

10:42 AM on 07/31/2011

The problem in your comment could be solved if it is a real problem. Blowers could be used to blow the coooler air up the stack. The exit vent from the turbine could have a closure flap to prevent a reversal of air flow. I would not take as a fact something written 30 years ago since we are much more advanced in technology today. Also, I really don't think a private company would sink 750 mil into a project that would not work.

[PlayTOE]

03:43 PM on 07/30/2011

Some extra possibilities come to mind.

1 ) you could grow vegetables in the outer ring of the greenhouse before the air gets too hot.
2 ) you could use this to evaporate waste water from cities which would improve it's efficiency and treat waste water at the same time. (or evaporate seawater of it were close enough). This would also lead to more rainfall downwind.
3 ) the tower could be made out of an actual highrise building and provide vertical office space as well as power.

[pirx]

09:28 AM on 07/31/2011

Why stop with the tower? Use the entire footprint for a mixed use, 1 or 2 story development with a uniform black roof. Ventilation ducts through the roof would allow the tower draft to maintain a constant breeze through the buildings.

[PlayTOE]

01:16 AM on 08/01/2011

Remember that the inner greenhouse part of the tower will have temperatures over 150 f ... and need lots of thermal mass below it for heat storage to use at night. This would not make easily useful living space As for ventilation, all air is ventilated up the tower using the chimney effect to achieve power.

[simonsez2]

01:37 PM on 07/30/2011

The physics of this is not clear to me either as some of you have commented.

There has to be some acceleration of some sort to turn a turbine. Is it forcing acceration of air by rapid heat buildup, then pushing it through smaller tubes to the blades?

[loco48]

01:58 PM on 07/30/2011

Yep. you got it. heat is energy. If you draw a circle and put a small pipe on the right bottom side, then put an exhaust pipe on the left side top. The turbine blades in the center of the circle will be turned by the heat rising from the right bottom pipe and escape thru the left hand top pipe.

[Tom Bosschaert]

07:31 AM on 07/31/2011

There's 3 physical phenomena at work to 'drive' solar updraft towers:
1) Heat convection: hot air rises, so the air will flow past the turbines up the chimney
2) Stack effect: air is compressed at the bottom and escaped upward
3) Venturi effect: a high tower will always 'pull' air through it, like blowing over the top of a bottle of water: the water will go up.

Solar updraft towers work at night as well (with reduced, but consistent output) because of the temperature difference between the ground and the air.

When you use the moisture trapping properties of the membrane wisely, you can also use the system to create new agricultural lands. This seems not to be done in this plan.

[WonderingNThinking]

02:30 AM on 07/30/2011

Interesting. About $5000 per household it will supply. The utility will have the capital costs paid back in about 8 years, with the assumption of a $50/month electric bill per household. Lot of profit to be made in later years if it works.

[loco48]

01:05 PM on 07/30/2011

I lived in southern AZ for a short time and electric bills for a small house was over $ 50 per month and that was 40 years ago. I would think more like 200 to 300 now.

[simonsez2]

01:41 PM on 07/30/2011

My gut tells me it will run much higher than $750 million to build this sucker anywhere in the USA. My guess closer to $3 billion before the first watt leaves.

[loco48]

02:41 PM on 07/30/2011

I don't know simone, The structure looks pretty simple and the turbines would be the most expensive of the structure, the rest is metal work by welders. Kind of like building a ship. What is the cost of an aircraft carrier these days?

I would think that if this australian company is really going to do this, they have already priced out the cost. Normally on this kind of project, they would price it out and throw in some overun cost. From my past experience this kind of project is pretty well mapped out for years before a final decision is made.