EuroDish 10 kWe dish Stirling generator Milan - http://www.solarthermalpower.it

[cyberlord64]

@tuzmor true communism can't exist because it requires of everyone to have the exact same goals, expectations and lifestyles. That simply can't happen (unless of course you brainwash people somehow which in turn takes away the very concept of democracy). Also communism doesn't mean that the government will work for you. In a communist society you would have to build 100 of these before the government would give 1 to you. You have more chances building your own TODAY in the comfort of your home.

[mastertune]

now this tech cost about 6000€/KW with 30% efficiency... price go down to 4000€/KW if you buy a system 3MW (3000KW of peak) or above...

In south Europe, one KW of peak power installed can produce 1200KWh for year

In desertic region of north Africa it could reach 2000KWh/year.

Definitely is yet too expensive... maximum price should be 1500€/KW to be attractive.

[aloisgault]

UPDATE: Megawatt size plants have been built in California USA using these with about a 30% efficiency rate.

[ERROR433]

@aloisgault give a link please and the price.. and how much do those dishes produce ?

[2009mechanic]

Only 19 percent efficient ?

Why such a low efficiency with a sterling cycle unit ?

Concentrated parabolic solar concentrators combined with sterling cycle should be better efficiency than that.

Perhaps they are not considering the waste heat that they don't use and possibly could.

[uggligr]

@cyberlord64, this mission does not require a manned launch. You are using an incorrect figure for launch costs. Also, waste can be separated and will have considerably less mass to launch.

Actually, the only waste for consideration for launching into space would be weapons grade material and it would be better to burn that in specially designed reactors and get something out of it.

Solar power satellites would be the best solution but I can't argue strawman launch costs. Google, OK?

[cyberlord64]

@tuzmor cause comunism didn't work out that well in the past

[SladkaPritomnost]

@tuzmor

Shut the hell up!

Nothing is for free! Realize it when you receive a bill from a shop and don't forget to check up TAX!

[hapticsculptor]

make a low low low low cost version bro!

[correocasa3]

(Chernobyl "green" nuclear energy) = (dependant consumer base 4 ever) = (cattle to feed the stablishment aka gobern-mind) = (greed) Vs (Solar energy every day for everybody) = (all man are born in solar equity) = (free for all) and freedom of the cattle doesn't pay for hereditary empires.

too complicated? well, as Mr Groening says: Nuclear = Burns, Solar = Lisa. Pretty easy to understand unless your paycheck disrupts your clarity. ALL NUCLEAR MUST BE BANNED FROM EARTH TO CALL HUMANS FREE!

[nomoresalvia]

@tuzmor because the u.s. government is still trying to figure how to tax the people on it haha

[physics1philosophy]

I have tried to build a few Stirling engines - they are very interesting things!!

However, I think it is silly to use nuclear - when we have a free nuclear generator that we orbit around - the sun.

Solar panels are the future really.

Cheers,

Geoff

[heidebill]

Very Nice working Machine

[Bobbonkers]

So you think cleaning a mirror is higher maintenance than a coal mine, the rail network and a powerstation put together.

There is a small 1.5MW plant being built with sixty 25KW stirling engines in Maricopa County , there will be 5 permanent jobs created of which 1 is for maintenance.

[uggligr]

Windstorms, rain, birdshit, this system is going to require a lot of maintenance. I appreciate people trying to replace coal, but the truth is, it will take molten salt breeder reactors to feed the energy grid. And a much-strengthened IAEA to control the U-233.

Proliferation is the biggest problem with nukes. But the Iraq invasion proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that arms control works.

Solving the second part of that equation is simple; people who don't believe the IAEA go to jail.

[shob77]

Pakistan, Iran, and Korea prove that beyond a doubt arms anti-proliferation programs aka arms control does not work.

[uggligr]

Thank you for your reply, shob77. I disagree with you, however.

It's true that the cooperation of The United State, Russia, Great Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Korea, & Israel will be needed to make it work. Iran is cooperating. South Africa already has.

I wish they had started solar power satellites in the 1970's, but they didn't. The recent highly disappointing results of the LCROSS mission still leaves space solar competitive with the ground. Research is needed.

[Frostlander]

You failed on all accounts.

Coal must be dug out of the ground. This already makes it less efficient. On top of that the maintenance of a coal plant dwarfs taking a bucket of Windex and a squeegee out in the desert and occasionally replacing bearings.

Nuclear is impractical in that it uses dangerous a substance, but also uranium is a very limited resource. Requiring great amounts of refining to acquire the mineral from ore because the richer ores have largely been mined away.

[uggligr]

@Frostlander; you said "You failed on all accounts." which sounds pretty confrontational to me. Then you proceed to try to make me out to be a coal advocate, and I am not. I resent this. It's demonizing.

Nuclear is the greenest option. The dangers of uranium are highly exaggerated pseudoscience, so is the fiction that uranium is scarce, it's not, it's more common than zinc or cadmium and is 40 times as common as silver. And remember how little it takes, 1.5 million times less than coal.

[Frostlander]

Instead of posting a lengthy reply I'm going to refer you to the only video in my favorites. Check Chris Martenson's resources if you like, but you can save your time if you just believe that I have already. That's up to you.

[ABSimo]

@uggligr What do you do with the spent Uranium rods? Bury them under mountains until we run out of mountains?

[uggligr]

@ABSimo it takes a million and a half times less uranium to make energy than it does coal. Therefore we will NEVER run out of mountains. Actually we could shoot the stuff out into space, it's compact and light enough to do that; remember, there are 5000 tons of satellites in geosynchronous orbit.

[ABSimo]

@uggligr This way is still better; we don't have to bury ANYTHING under mtns or shoot crap into space. The Sun will still be active when we run out of Uranium.

[cyberlord64]

@uggligr A 1000 MWe light water reactor uses about 25 tonnes of enriched uranium a year and the cost of lifting a metric tonn in space (the lowest possible) is 120.000.000$. so annually you would require at least 3.000.000.000$ to get rid of the waste of only one reactor. however the success rate of space launches is 98% so every 3-5 years you would have one launch failure which would resault to massive radiation pollution.

[ARR016a]

you do have a point there...

[Danispyral]

in fact the system only works in sun hours, so you can make the calculation of the factor of use.. with 12 hours... may be 15... but it doesn't work the all day because is SOLAR... the idea is do not use conventional plants in the sun hours and use it at the night... so you can have from 16 to 20% of the FU... also you can make this hybrid... using Biogas...

Saludos desde México

[robz40]

hang on a minute...9000Kwh per year / (365x24x10KW) =10% . This system has a factor use of 10% and that makes it pretty unsuitable.

[neato3000]

You use 10KW of electricity an hour? Thats 250, 40w light bulbs turned on for an hour! No wonder I'm paying so much for electricity, ha ha. Just kidding, I think the average house supposedly uses around 5-15KWh a day or 200-625W/hr or 1752-5475Kwh per year. So if it really is supplying 9000Kwh a year, Yer only using 19.4%-60.8%

[robz40]

not use.. production of electricity

[espido]

9000Kw per hour its not enough ?

[robz40]

9000Kwh per year. You need to relate production with costs and reliability. The comparison renewable not renewable must be done by considering the fuel saved, NOT the cost per kWh.

[shob77]

I pay my electric bill by the KWh not by what I didn't use. Costs needs to be real money.

[gilgamesh1962]

like photovoltaic systems, you would grid tie such a system, sell excess to the power companies, then when your not generating power ( night ) the grid tie works in reverse, but since very few homes use 9 Megawatts of power a year, you will either make money or pay basically nothing to the power companies, because you would be selling then a lot more than them to you. with grid tie, you wont need large battery banks.

[hejama1]

I live in Texas, and during a hot summer month I will use at least 2000 KW's in one month.

I will easily consume 9 megawatts of electricity in a year.

[Tr4sHCr4fT]

What does this baby costs?

[HWGuyEG]

FFFUUUUUUUU They're wasting a lot of heat.

[gilgamesh1962]

But that's free heat, wasted heat is any heat that's not being utilized, so having a solar generator is actually "wasting less heat" than not having one, in which case you are wasting 100% of the energy available.

[jerryaltman]

Well, they could change it. There is high eficiency photovoltaic sells, reaching 35% efficiency. They are expansive, but just a smal pannel is needed, centered in the focus of the parabolic mirror. Y]The solar panel need to be cooled, and so they could use water to cool it, and the hot water, the vapor would be use to move a smaller engine. So they would get the 35% eficinecy of solar panel plus the electricity of the engive moved with the hot water used to cool the panel.

[vqdset]

If you search "Archimede" in Spain, a project of Carlo Rubbia's nobel you can see an efficiency of 70%.

[Lollocide]

I guess one of the reasons they use stirling instead of PV cells is because if the cooling system goes down for even a small amount of time the cells burn, while a stirling doesn't require additional systems to keep it operational.

[jerryaltman]

If the cells handle at least 100 celsius degree, they could use water, and the water when boils do not get more than 100 clesius degree. So they could use the vapor to move a small turbine, and so they would have the energy from the solar cells and the one produced by the vapor from the water cooling system.

[Lollocide]

No, my point was that if the cooling system breaks down, as in stops working, the cells would be damaged by the heat, maybe even destroyed.

The small turbine idea sounds nice, but stirling engines negate a whole cooling system that PV's would need and I kinda doubt the increased build, maintainance and chance of failure costs would be made up by the increased energy output.

[jerryaltman]

The cooling system could be just water tubes connected. The water would move always, from cold to hot, by principle of convection. The heat water could be used for home heat or to get hot shower, or even to esterelize and desalination.

[Lollocide]

Right, so you're either an idiot who doesn't understand English or an inept troll.

Either way, thanks for playing.

[jerryaltman]

A Israeli system use something like that I describe. So I'm not the idiot here.

[jerryaltman]

17% efficiency??/???? What a fucking misery! I heard it was possible a 60% eficiency by using sun heat and generators...

[Nichen]

I´ll have 9 please

[moffett8]

I'd like to get more information about the generator. This would work well with a Fresnel lens or 2 ,30r 4 of them and you have the same effect

Phil

[louswire]

this system will have to run for quite a few years, just to pay back all the energy used to build it...

Thousands of KW will bee used manufacturing the reflector, making the tubing, welding the tubing, and machining the parts for the generator.

You have to factor all the energy costs... not just the output

[revnstpaul]

look at all the worthless junk we make, when will it pay for its self? just a thought

[trossachs2003]

Not exactly: It's new technology. As more investment goes into it, the real costs drop. More importantly if the proportion of energy coming from renewable sources increases then the environmental costs of manufacturing technology like this will decrease.

This is not the whole answer but its a step. Bet it costs though

[basilenglish]

If water was pumped upstream into a Dam during the day using solar powered generators ,and at night hydro turbines were used to generate electrivity, how must loss would occur.

[basilenglish]

so what the world really needs is a grid that follows the sun so the country which has full sunlight is producing electricity for the rest of the world for a certawin time period, then the next country fires up and takes over this corporation would have to be owned by all countries and run by the UN.

[bg0821]

woo hoo what a dish! I lined a tiny satellite dish with mirror and its cool imagine that thing!

[bigrobnz]

This will change the world, I"m telling ya!!

[firedude201234]

um its been around since the 1800s idiot

[tsport100]

PID tracking parabolic dishes have been around since 1800s? LOL

[toamaori]

No! the Sun has been around since the 1800s bwahahaha

[Xatruch702]

too much hassle we are better off with wind power.

[ShoTro]

Wind power has its draw backs. It isn't an infinite resource, and tapping into it too much has serious implications.

[arkatub]

plus wind power costantly fluctuates and is unpredictable.

[citizenactivist]

I love this product, but see problems with actuator(s) and see problems when snow load

starts affecting the movement and timing required. Pads must be poured and they have to be 100% flat. There maybe applications where this is the ticket but they will be few, I'm sorry to say, and far between.

30 year conservation and solar pioneer.

[amegger]

This system uses a closed loop positioning system (same systems used in robotic & CNC machines), and given the low gear ratio of the actuators I see no problem with this system handling snow loading or wind forces. Mounting pads would not need to be flat, computer systems can adjust and focus the beam in real time.

[ycats1000]

lol i agree, the purpose of the actuators is to align the dish, why the foundations need to be flat?

also, it's better to build in the desert... that way no snow!!

[deauzie]

build them in china and sell them to dealers for $12000 ea and change the world.

If you sell them for 40E ea no one will know your name go china route and you will be on every talkshow from Los Angeles to London

[vqdset]

this system is 10 years old. now is possible produce this more cheap and more efficient.

Search on web Carlo Rubbia, Italian nobel for physic who must ran away in Espana for made "Archimede", a solar system that produce energy day and night with efficienty of 70%.

Italy is under control of gas and oil mafia, that's all.

Sorry for my english

[roidroid]

Just ONE of these dishes (plus batteries in your house) could indefinitely power an energy efficient house (2737.5 kWh a year) and 2 Tesla Roadster cars (each 2,660 kWh per 20,000 kms - ie: per year).

2 dishes, and you wouldn't even need to bother with an energy efficient home, and you could have 3 cars.

So how much are these dishes?

[sungiga]

Dish Stirling tech. is still at prototype stage; Estimated cost for one EuroDish sample in 2006 was 120.000€ + installation. With series production cost should fall down in the future at 40000€ each and final kWhe cost should be around 0,25 - 0,30 on 25 years operation in Mediterranean area. One general maintenance per year to the motor included.

[SladkaPritomnost]

@sungiga

25yeats eh?

That's a long time to wait for destructive wind or ice rain.

But anyway this device is a great idea and I'm waiting till Chinese will start to produce them massively. They will copycat the idea that's for sure.