Solar Reserve Solar Thermal Solar Power tower with molten salt storage based on Solar Two

Solar Reserve is a company spun out of UTC United Technologies Corp -- it's technology is about dispatchable solar thermal power 24x7

Based on the now defunct test plant California's Solar Two

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• solar
• thermal
• tower
• reserve
• storage
• molten
• salt

[kronrizzle]

this is so important for future energy and really exciting :-)

[nuttycuban163]

Wow! This is incredible! I am really excited to see the new source of power mainstreamed!

[se7engold]

@GreedIsYourGod UTC's the 38th largest polluted company? well.. at least it developed a new clean technology that can reduce tons of pollution.

[se7engold]

can this technology also applied in micro but mass environment like in automotive industry? (to car).. because if it's possible, then it would be a great solution for the pollution problem.

But, again like any breakthrough and clean technology, price. Can this technology is cheap enough, to be applied at developing / poor countries?

[GreedIsYourGod]

Can you say "Green Washing? 2004 election, UTC 6th largest defense industry donor to political campaigns, total of $789,561. UTC was also the sixth largest donor in to federal candidates and political parties in the 2006 election cycle. Environmental record U Mass Amherst identified UTC as the 38th-largest corporate producer of air pollution in the United States as of 2008. UTC released roughly 110,000 pounds of toxic chemicals annually into the air

[joemc111]

OK now if we had say 4 of those tanks you would have 28,000 Cubic yards of storage. Now that is just for this one power plant of 1,000 Megs. I think to keep the tanks this size or smaller because of the cost to build them. This plant will take care of about 1,000,000 homes that's right one million homes. What can you guys add to this? I think this is the way to build storage. If you have noticed I used the largest numbers.

[joemc111]

OK

beyondzeroemissions states that a 1,000 Meg power plant would use about 28,000 Tons of salt to keep it going all night. I looked on the web and found a site that said a 1 ton or 2,000 lb. of salt is about 1 cubic yard , So The tank would have to hold about say 30,000 Cubic yards of salt. Now how big is that. Well if you made a tank out of concrete , like the new water storage tanks. The inside would be 87 feet across and 30 feet high and that will give you about 7,000 Cubic yards.

[merlinlordofchaos]

So the answer, while still a bit vague, is not that much. Salts are an abundant resource and are not consumed in the process. They are reused. And it is not the kind of salt you use on your food so don't worry about that. Salts can also be made with basic chemistry . There won't be any shortage.

[merlinlordofchaos]

The round things at the base of the tower are the salt tanks. one is for the cold salt and one for molten salt. only one is full at a time based on what I have heard. From all the documentaries I have seen they seam to be smaller than grain silos. Continued next post......

[joemc111]

How many Cu Meters of Molten salt does it take to make the system work all night? Are we talking 100 Cu Meters or 10.000 Cu Meters. None of the Molten salt videos are telling us that. Joe