Time to setup a miniature tower at your garage..or may be a next project after your electric hummer..or may be setup up one in parallel so that it can charge the car in the night. Oh wait you already have batteries that store power from solar.
I made some of those parabolic mirrors at Noor and Noor2 which are installed in Morocco. Specifically, I was the plant engineer at Rioglass Solar in Surprise, AZ, and I designed, tested, and validated the packaging to ship 2 tons of glass (per package) across the world. I also 'owned' the mirror line, furnace line, product printing, etcetera. One small nitpick: it's not a focal 'point' but a focal line.
@@koendos3 No you get a focal point when using a circular parabolic mirror. These are linear parabolic mirrors, so the light is not concentrated in a point but a line.
@@koendos3 no, the focal point of a parabola is opposite from the directorix line. Focal point is where all parallel, incident rays (from the sun in this case) are directed to. This applies to a parabolic curve in 2d (x and y only) space. Since the solar arrays are parabolic troughs in 3-d space ( x, y, and z), all those infinite focal points line up to form a focal line. System efficiency depends on that line having a very narrow (narrowest possible in practice) width to minimize energy lost to reflection.
Also, those parabolic troughs are 4-segment arrays composed of 2 inner parabolic segments and 2 outer ones. They are of course symmetric for max solar capture because they are computer- steered to point optimally toward the sun.
In the early 1980's I had a solar water heater on my roof. It tracked the sun with parabolic mirrors. The same as in this video, only a lot smaller. Side note it also made shade on my roof and kept the house cooler.
@Gary Tompkins: Nice! That is sometimes referred to as "passive" solar in my experience. It is commonplace, in areas such as Taiwan, to observe water storage tanks on roofs with similar goals in mind! However, it is prevalent to utilize on demand water heaters in such areas for showers and such, so the water storage tanks on roof tops are more to provide free pre-heating, lower operating costs, and as an added benefit: better water pressure due to gravity's effects! That type of attention to detail can be done everywhere and while the energy wins are not jaw dropping, "everything counts in large amounts" small gains add up over time!
@@grey5626 no, it is active solar, passive solar is things that don't use tracking systems or need to be messed with after installation like south facing windows, and awnings that are long enough to completely block the noonday sun in the summer, but are short enough to let it in during the winter.
Did it use true parabolic mirrors or cylindrical parabolic mirrors? The latter would be a lot cheaper. Did it use metallic mirrors? Again, a lot cheaper.
I did a project on the molten salt CSP towers back in my college Heat Transfer class! SUPER fascinating stuff, and I had the same reaction when I drove by the Ivanpah power station for the first time too! I was like "IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?!?!?!?" and had to exit and check it out haha. Awesome series, Dianna! I really enjoyed it :)
Since I vanwpaugh was a boondoggle that didn't produce power, they shut it down. Now molten salts can also transfer great amounts of heat safely in a nuclear reactor Terra watts more energy, since it is 24/7,obviosly takes thousands of times less space with attendant reduction of waste, they still haven't decommissioned Ivanapaugh,never produced one watt of useful power.
Fun fact: Using mirrors to concentrate light is not mutually exclusive with using photovoltaics. Concentration photovoltaics is also a thing, where you use PV cells that are optimized for far more light than conventional photovoltaics. For that matter, there are photovoltaic/thermal hybrid systems out there that use a thermal transfer fluid to cool the PV cells. There are many many flavors of solar power :)
Amazing there are even Moon powered ovens in use today! Not large scale, though interesting and I do wondering about what a scaled up utility system can absorb from the Moon light?
Photovoltaic cells are usually somewhat heat sensative, so you need to cool the cells, and seperate the infra red light from the rest(ideally using a reflective filter that points at a concentrated solar thermal genorator) since lower frequencies aren't useful for most photovoltaic cells and still produce heat.
Would be awesome if the price point of high temp PV cells came down in price. Is interesting seeing where people have placed heat exchangers on the back of solar panels to use that energy for water or radiant heating.
Also, photovoltaics might be better for small scale, roof top projects, but where there's land available maybe the heat variant is better? Either way, they can coexist
I saw on the discovery channel recently that place was shut down. Too much maintenance keeping the mirrors clean and other issues. Cost per kilowatt hour was up to $ 1.20 while most of us pay 7-8 cents a kilowatt hour.
Something that wasn't covered, but which seems compelling to me, is that CSP, unlike PV, does not strictly rely upon heavy metals and a toxic manufacturing process.
PV relies on vast amounts of coal with attendant pollution but also Chinese death camps, but unlike CSP,PV actually makes a tiny bit of electrical power.there are still csp operating but not one met benchmarks.
My first job when I was 15 was repairing heliostat controllers that moved mirrors to track the sun to do something similar for a powerplant outside Barstow, CA. I loved this video so much, Thank you!
Had several of these built in my hometown. All of which are gone now because it was relatively inefficient when it came to creating power. Albeit, it worked, but they transitioned quickly to putting down solar panels instead. Another problem is that the concentration of heat from all the mirrors would literally fry birds who flew in the path of the reflections. Nonetheless, it’s an incredible and effective science, and it works, however there are complications and inefficiencies that tend to ruin its potential.
You’re right. The solar water towers aren’t as efficient with energy production as originally thought. And lots of cost towards Maintanance of constantly rotating mirrors.
birds don't get fried. that's a myth. if you actually watch the video, the focal point is a meter infron of the mirrors. and you can't just instantly fry anything with a mirror.
A thorium reactor would take up way less space, generate overwhelmingly more power, and help us with our research into developing better methods of space propulsion. China is already building them. A comparison study would be great.
A thorium reactor would also be much more expensive and come way too late to the game. We need to decarbonize energy production today, not in 10+ years with experimental never tested in real production reactors. They would come too late and be too uncertain.
@@jomsies Nuclear energy is sustainable, especially if we use all of the uranium from our nuclear warheads. We have enough uranium reserves to power our entire species for 200 years with nuclear fission without the need to mine anymore, and by that time we would have nuclear fusion to swap over to. Fusion is the future, but we need to convert to gen 4 nuclear reactors now, as well as using other sustainable energy sources like wind, hydroelectric, and solar where it's applicable.
@@lilithva9111 people say nuclear energy isn't "sustainable" but it is close to it. When we run out of uranium as you say something better should be available. And if it's not, well not our problem😂 Solution is there, but people are so scared of it. Radiation is scrutinized nowadays just because of Japan and Tsjernobyl
This series has been so enlightening! I've really enjoyed the way you've introduced us to all these different solutions and compared them while keeping it easy enough to understand. This stuff is important but intimidating and often overwhelming, so I've really appreciated having you as a guide :)
Solar tower power plants can have benefits for plants and animals there. Under the mirrors, evaporation is reduced. That means plants have more water available to grow and more plants mean more food for animals. Deserts usually mean to much sun and too little water, so those mirrors remove the liminting factor for plant growth. Mirrors consist mainly of aluminium and glass, so they are constructed from the most abundant elements on the planet. We have more than enough of the necessary materials to cover all deserts with those kind of plants, and those would provide more energy than the world currently needs. We wouldn't even need every desert. And the bigger we build them, the cheaper and more efficient storage we can have because of the square-cube law. Storing the heat with molten salt can allow electricity production 24/7 without needing fossil fuels, but unfortunately those power plants right now are only built with no storage or only a very small storage tank. The storage is not as efficient as lithium-ion, but up to 100 times cheaper.
Really appreciate this series. There is so much hype about things it’s hard to sort it out at times. A basic overview is sure helpful for some of us idiots.
I'm a middle school science teacher, so happy to share your videos with my students to inspire them about where their place can be in energy solutions!
Permanently destroying hectares of plant and animal habitat can't be seriously thought of as a solution. I thought that this was what we were trying to avoid in the first place.
From what I remember there were more or less 3 reasons I remember as to why this isn't used as much compared to PV, despite it being able to fix one of the most important problems with renewables: intermittency. These problems are: 1) Cost: CSP costs around 3-4 times what PV costs, so that immediately isn't really great. If we can get storage costs low enough, PV+storage is also more interesting. 2) Geographical limitation: You can't just place these plants everywhere, the efficiency reduces a lot depending on the available sunlight. And ofcourse you need space and lots of it. With PV you can if need be place it in smaller units in a same location to avoid obstacles, elevation differences etc. aren't that much of a problem, with CSP this can be more of a problem. Another problem here is that CSP isn't usually located close to the main energy users, so you possibly need to install connection wires etc too. With PV you can place them on the roofs, car parks, nearby fields, ... limiting these kind of connection costs. 3) Water usage: These mirrors need to be kept clean. This often requires water use to do so. The problem is that these systems usually are in more arid places where water is more valuable. Ofcourse you might have ways to get around this, but they will usually be less effective or more costly. This was for example one of the controversies with CSP plants in Morocco that were subsidies by the EU, I believe. Does CSP has a place in the grid mix? Yes, I think they definitely will play a role. Are they likely to become one of the main sources/compete with PV? Doubtfull. They might be usefull for energy intensive industries that could possibly be build around them and then either you use their storage to keep these industries going 24/7 or it is used to help balance the grid in the evening/at night. If you were to ignore things like costs, political stability (for example northern Africa region), ... , CSP would likely be the best source to get us fully renewable. in fact they are probably one of the only renewable sources that could completely on its own get us to 100% renewable; No battery storage, no PV, wind, hydro, ... needed, just CSP. But it would be expensive and you'd need to use very long connections and the losses that go with it.
@@throwaway692 I only talked about CSP and somehow your conclusion of this one topic is 'Nuclear because wind and solar not good'? Honestly CSP might, if scaled well, be just as good if not better than nuclear imo. Ofcourse this is based on nuclear currently used build. Thorium might change that, but first we'll need to have a modern thorium reactor operating for several years.
Would it be possible to use a compound other than water to clean the mirrors? Possibly mixing it with something like acetone to keep them clean but not siphon too much water from local cities
A physics minor girl new to solar mirrors??? Do they hand out diplomas at street corners nowadays? To top it off she thinks she's entitled to an opinion in her green psychosis nonsense. The only solution to our energy challenge is nuclear power - fast reactors in particular. Solar and wind are complete nonsense.
@@TH-cam_Stole_My_Handle_Too at first, borium was the best element for nuclear power plants .. Yet.. In the end they chose uranium.. LOBBY LOBBY LOBBY..
@@TH-cam_Stole_My_Handle_Too Almost no one here would be new to solar mirrors, but i bet +98% of the people on this coment section even if they have a physics degree have never been on such power plants
Any coverage on the negative traits? I heard that these powerplants need natural gas to heat up in the morning. Also the concentrated solar beams burn wildlife flying through them and there are problems with broken mirrors littering the ground.
Also not discussed is the amount of maintenance and material needed to keep the mirrors clean. Efficiency drops quickly with dust and dirt settling on them. It takes water....lots and lots of water. Something not exactly abundant in dry sunny climates.
These negative traits can be fixed and are not permanent. If there’s any trait that is worth mentioning, it’s those that are inherent in the design. I’m pretty sure these bright engineers are fully aware there are broken mirrors on the ground. It’s all a matter of systemically solving the problem as opposed to inefficiently cleaning it up as you go.
@@ZeroZoneZZ So only the negative traits that you deem worthy of mentioning are allowed? And apparently all you have to do is "solve the problem", right? So, why don't they just "solve the problem" if it's so damn easy? Your ignorance is an amazing feat.
The special shape of the mirrors is also referred to as "parabolic troughs" they're used here in Pakistan to heat up water in tubes in order to produce steam and drive the boards of a small turbine.
This was great, I shared it with a bunch of mates, and it made me feel so much hope for the future. Thank you for the work you and your team put in to making it!
Awesome video. At 7:38 you said, "I came into this entire series being like, we're going to learn about the best technology and that's what's going to go in everywhere." I think this supports the idea that there is no "one size fits all" solution to generating power. In places like Death Valley, this is a no brainer. In the North Sea, wind is really good. In Iceland, geothermal is awesome. There are also areas where nuclear is the clear answer. The logical answer is to use what is best, but we get into trouble when the people who decide what to use, don't care if it is the best solution.
I think it's not saturated steam but rather superheated steam. Because the water particles in saturated steam would impinge on the turbine blades and damage them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the steam turbines that we work with use superheated steam
yeah the generators make saturated steam, but there are other parts that turn the saturated steam into super-heated steam. you right saturated steam would cause a lot of damage on the turbines.
I saw "Planet of the Humans," a Michael Moore-produced film last year; it's time to watch it again. It was shouted down by those who didn't like it attacking their sacred cows in renewable energy industry.
Would be nice at the end of the series if you do a summary chart showing power efficiency, cost effectiveness, kinds of contracts that apply to selling each type of energy.
@@Conflict_Boardgaming I'm a petroleum engineer and I don't think you're going to like the findings about abundance. (Hint, the sun is functionally infinite).
As I traveled 2 days ago from San Diego to Las Vegas I was amazed by how shiny these structures were. I thought: What a great subject for Physics Girl and/or Veritassium to talk about. Now my mind is completely boggled by the fact that 4 days ago this video was posted 😂🤯.
Can't help but think about Fallout NV seeing this. "They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard"
As I remember the solar power plant from a video game of 2010, it kinda puts into perspective how this technology is not brand new. Yet not a lot of people talk about it.
I remember these from family holidays in Spain, early nineties I think. Even in the mid of day the tower would look like it was getting hit by a thousand spotlights, it was so bright. Simple and effective technology we need more of.
I'm so glad I finally know what those are. I was in a bus riding across the Negev Desert and I saw what looked to be the eye of Sauron in the distance. I never told anyone about my experience because I thought nobody would believe me or know what it was. Since that day I was always curious about that and thought about it every now and then, but I never came up with anything. Thank you for finally giving me closure on this clean energy phenomenon :D
I would check out "Planet of the Humans" to get some balance in this discussion... Then check out MEER Reflection Project to regain some hope, as it's probably the ONLY technology that's sufficient at this late of a stage in the catastrophic heating taking place as we speak. And share the message because we will need the whole planet to get on board and support it!
@@michaelverdouw9551 sort of... it requires A LOT of caveats... The waste from nuclear is FAR worse so it must be managed appropriately, and that is not the case for many current plants. Constant maintenence is required to keep the waste from leaking into the environment, which takes energy and humans. Only when the waste is permanently stored without the need for additional energy and effort is your statement true. Right now, if civilization fails, we will unfortunately end up with a toxic earth. The risks of this can't be understated. Once we can completely rule out the problem of waste, and deal with what is currently requiring maintenence, then I would agree with your statement. We should have a much larger effort to deal with these issues, so if the power goes out, there's no catastrophe. All development of new nuclear would certainly need to mitigate these risks of waste entirely, but that's certainly not the cheapest, nor the quickest way to satisfy our energy needs. However, I agree it should be considered for the long term, assuming we take this all into account.
It always amazed me how nearly all of our power generation is identical once you get to the "water is turned into steam" part. The only difference is where the heat to boil the water comes from.
Yes. I think we need to get off the “one solution” idea. As we’ve seen with our dependence on fossil fuels, when we put all our eggs in one bucket… well, it’s not great. Solar, wind, hydro, etc… and new, innovative sources. Storage is equally important. Great video and thanks for the information!
Exactly! This specialized myopic “one solution for all” (new world order type) grandstanding is doomed to fail th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
We had a few of these in the southern Central Valley of California, they used the tower style. Now they’re just broken mirrors in the fields. And remember that photovoltaic cells degrade over time.
Renewable energy has not improved the climate on iota, cheaper current from taxpayer paid for turbines backed up by natural gas and coal that don't pay for their pollution edges out nuclear which is the only always on low carbon source hydro has practically vanished here in the West with the drought caused by shutting nuke plants.
How many tens of thousands of square miles do we need to waste on mirror farms for something that only works during sunny days? Are we supposed to make huge batteries consisting of poisonous chemicals that need to be replaced constantly? I think you should curb your emotions and think logically. You sound like an Eskimo that buys ice cubes from a Salesman.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 It works in the winter, too, obviously; It just doesn't get as hot. It probably even works on an overcast day to a certain extent. Germany has the greatest use of photovoltaic in the world and their climate is pretty much overcast during most of the year.
@@Nilguiri how does it work at night? How good is Germany's photovoltaic usage? 100% 50% 30%? I don't see Germany bragging about how they're doing so good. I suppose you would settle for a car that worked okay some of the times when the Sun is up. No, I'm not settling.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 What a wonderful anecdote! Who are you, Donald Trump? Ever heard of Google or Wikipedia? It took me about 3.5 seconds to find this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany and it turns out that they are second, behind China, not first, as I previously thought. I learned something new, did you? Yeah, nah. And I could not give a flying f*** if you're "settling" or not, Cletus. Stay in school.
@@Nilguiri I greatly enjoyed those last two comments that you deleted. Personal attacks are always bread-and-butter for the losers in the world. No I'm not Donald Trump but you could very well be sleepy Joe Biden. Thanks again for the amusing replies that you were too ashamed to leave in public.
@@Somagarn Yep. And dust and wind and stuff. Actually I was doing some research and I found this documentary... You see "renewable energy" (solar, wind and biomass)... is a huge scam... I know this sounds like an anti-vaxxer but please refer this video: th-cam.com/video/Zk11vI-7czE/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=MichaelMoore The solar mirrors are at 31:09 You will be horrified by what you see and understand that we are believing a lie... And pls reply to this comment. We need real debate and discussion.
CSP LCOE usually is around 110-140 $/MWh, for comparison this is around 30-45 $/MWh for a similarly sized large scale pv plant, 50$/MWh for onshore wind, 70-100$/MWh for offshore wind, 45-60$/MWh for coal plants (though this price is ever increasing due to taxes, environmental demands, coal cost, ...), gas 70-90/100 $/MWh. Hydro is difficult since it depends a lot on the scale etc. but the larger scales hydro usually is around 20-35$/MWh. Nuclear again is a difficult one. Old nuclear was around 25-35$/MWh, but new ones tend to be much more expensive. Recent LCOE numbers put it between 100-180$/MWh, though 60-70$/MWh might be more correct.
@@vishaljoy6802 You did not just referenced Planet of the humans. That is one of the most disgracefull documentaries out there currently. It uses old outdated information and images, based on based on a subjective personal experience and often if not misinforming at least misleading its audience. Even if they brought it out around 2015 it would be barely acceptable, releasing it in 2020 with no new information since 2014 or so is just unacceptable, especially since renewables progressed massively between 2015 and 2020. One of their experts that was filmed being very sceptical even before they released it had change his opinion to mildly or even very optimistic. Specifically to the solar part: 1) they said solar panels were around 10% efficient and around 10 years of operating. The 10% was around 10-15 years ago true, currently it is around 19-20% on average. And the operating time was just bullocks, solar panels are aimed at an operational lifetime of around 25-30 years, they could even go longer than that, but at that point their output has been reduced beyond acceptable levels (60-70% of their original capacity) and replacing it with newer more efficient panels while recycling the old ones is a better option. 2) they showed a desolate area left behind after a solar farm was removed. One small problem with that. That farm was in a renovation stage. The old panels that had been there for decades and reached end of life were removed before they filmed and new more efficient panels were installed after they filmed at that location, so that desolate place doesn't even exist. 3) they also talked about an CSP in Nevada or California (I forgot where it was) and told about how it needed natural gas in the morning to spin it up. One small problem with that is that the plant was one of the first CSP plants, modern ones don't use natural gas at any point of their operation. Moreover what they don't mention is that even this first inefficient CSP plant reduced natural gas usage by more than 65% compared to a regular natural gas powerplant. I can keep naming things about the documentary where they were misleading, or used too old information etc. but then I am going on for the next hour or more, so I'll just stick with this. There were some good points, however these were overshadowed by the bad ones. Moreover these good points didn't offer nothing new at all. The main message of the documentary of focusing more on saving energy and resources by for example limiting usage etc. has been a core pillar of the green movement for decades. The next thing is probably a bit more controversial. At the end they talk about overpopulation and that our population should shrink and that mostly the undeveloped world is the problem (at least in terms of growth), that is not a problem at all. We don't use too many resources due to overpopulation, we use too many resources due to the way we manage them and the large amount of resources that we waste. The earth can support several times the current population if we'd much better manage the resources. However I can understand if people were to disagree on this last point.
Are you trying to con people into believing that that one installation will power the entire United States? That installation displaces a small-town and probably couldn't run a small town oversized that it displaces. Plus it only works on sunny days not at night not in Cloudy weather. Only a fool or a con man would call that success.
I'd be interested to know how long it takes for these installations to cover their own emissions of constructions? I presume it's relatively quickly but it would be good to have the numbers somewhere
We need more people with practical concern than political junkies. Most political junkies are poor. There used to be such a joke on the Internet: What do boys with different salaries think before going to bed? Monthly salary of 50,000: The team needs to integrate again; Monthly salary of 30,000: That plan needs to be changed; Monthly salary of 20,000: what does that customer like; Monthly salary of 5,000: P40 pixels will definitely hang Apple; Monthly salary of 3,000: Bentley Bentayga is definitely not as good as Mercedes-Maybach S600； Monthly salary of 2,000: The influence of Russia's attitude towards NATO's eastward expansion on the US global strategy.
These mirrors and the heat they generate is the reason there's a drought. The monsoon that used to come from Nevada and Arizona storm turn back and away from California. The High Pressure as Weather Casters call it : keep the storms going up to Canada 🇨🇦 with the occasional drop to the Bay area. This is and I hope an unintentional Weather Modification
Assuming X amount of solar energy hits a given area on Earth based on the geography. Is taking some of that energy and using it to create extreme heat in concentrated locations going to have a positive or negative impact on climate change? Will it create heat zones like a city does causing disruption in weather patterns? Or assuming some less than 100% efficiency, would less than the total energy drawn from the sun by converted and that energy loss help reduce local heating? What are the non-electrical generation impacts to the environment?
All the energy from the sun that reaches the Earth is converted to heat eventually, whether or not some of it is interrupted by mirrors and towers or mirrors and tubes.
@@pauleohl Then explain why putting garden roofs on buildings reduces heat loads in cities. Same sun. Different surface. A sand desert reflects and dissipates it's heat back into the sky at night. The stored energy of those systems does not.
@@glenncurry3041 They absolutely do have a local effect on the climate. I do not know what the long term impact will be, especially considering that Las Vegas has already changed the local climate all by its self. I can tell you that the traditional solar panel fields between Las Vegas and Searchlight attract dust devils like a trailer park attracts tornadoes.
i saw the title and instantly said to my self on no not another Helios 1 time to get the c finder from some random kid for 20 caps so i can rain hellfire apon thine enemy
Wasn't this thechnology shown to be an epic failure? In theory it makes sense but in reality the plant never met the production goals of 50%, the best they ever got was around 20%. It turns out working with molten salt has its drawbacks. The plant only ran for about 9 months and could never produce enough revenue to meet basic maintenance cost so it had to be shutdown. Not trying to bash green technology but I am wondering if they even bothered piloted this technology before scaling up. Here is a link to the video th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
@D. Johnston 702 if you look at the dates... the plant failed in late'ish 2019 [how quick do you think info was published about this? Same second it failed? Or did it take time. This video was Aug 2021, and the video discussing the project failed Man Kev linked was Feb 2022. How much info was around in 2020 or 2021 during the peak of covid? How many people were touring plants then and discussing it, and talking with people involved in the project?? Prob none. As covid restrictions lifted more reports and tours of the project would be available.
I always look out for Ivanpah when I fly home to LA. Never thought about the stored energy capacity of CSP systems as an advantage over photovoltaics, that's pretty cool.
It’s not an advantage over PV because there are PV with energy storage as well. Typically they use batteries tho as storage. It’s just a technology to help alleviate the problem of reducing down time.
I really liked this deep dive series. Getting a really broad overview as well as some specific details was really entertaining, and I feel like I learned a lot!
I was thinking it was a very superficial and not a deep dive series, it showed some flawed engineering with dreams, some expensive ways of making or converting energy and missed out completely on something that covers 71 percent of the world.
@@maxnex7676 Yeah at 8:51 she says "the efficiency of it, the heat engine depends on the temperature of it and the hotter you can get the hot thing the more efficiency", who even talks like this? This was such a non-deep dive way of talking about the subject. First of all why is she assuming everyone will know what is the "heat engine" she is talking about here and then "the hot thing" being hotter in absolute terms doesn't matter much, it is the ratio ratio between the cold and the hot thing that matters, this video was as superficial as it could have been.
@@maxnex7676 There is no talk about the way the heat get transferred other then "in thousands of tubes ". and talking about saturated steam going into the turbine... really... really??. First you never let saturated steam run into a turbine because you have a chance at condensation on your turbine rotors, eating away the material, you superheat it way above the saturation line. Second if you run the HTF into the reboilers on sunrise, how do you not make the boiler burst from instant steam pressure inside the pipes, or just plain thermoshock because its 400 degrees celcius? (I think i know this one, they heat it up first at night, you know, burning that good old natrual gas.) third, does every tube inside the mirror expand halve a meter? i mean i hope you have wheels under those mirrors then. It's a pretty video, nice pictures, but nothing of value is being told.
Nice video! I wonder how they keep those mirrors dust-free. Is that done by robots? Or do they have some technology to vibrate those mirrors, somewhat like the vibration technology in Olympus cameras to keep the sensor dust-free?
I'm feeling a little bit let down by this video especially in context with this whole video series. How are they storing the heat energy? Just using a big tank of that special oil? What are the limits of scalability? Or in the case of the sand like material? What devices or mechanisms are used to store and transport the 1000 degrees hot sand? really curious to know, cheers.
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Also, no mention of the big problem with the mirror fields: focused light literally incinerates birds that happen to fly over. I was glad to learn of the fluid tubes variant because it solves the "giant death mirror" problem.
I know that the molten salt CSP's that work with molten salts in the tower heat the salt. This salt only cools off slowly and thus will give off heat for a long time after the sunlight has stopped heating it up. I guess it is the same principle with salt etc. These parabolic mirror with oil running through them usually are not the ones with storage, rather the tower variants are. here is a video that shows the basics: th-cam.com/video/ADbUsuNeRQE/w-d-xo.html
@@kocsirtamas The sand gets heated and used to create steam. Instead of using a heated fluid (HTF), the sand retains heat longer (after dark), so you can use to keep running.
We've seen footage of a (previous?) Mohave dessert CSP plant now abandoned. Fields of broken mirrors devastation rubble. Similarly, fields of rusted abandoned wind generators. Are we to cover CA with such primitive tech dreams gone wrong. And leave fields of just rust dust and broken glass behind? Please explain what's changed.
Mirrored solar actually has a lot of operational challenges long-term, in addition to the perennial solar-energy production vs. demand mismatch. There are some real maintenance headaches, and they kill a lot of birds. Ivanpah, in San Bernandino County, wipes out around 6,000 birds a year. Hydrogen production may help solve one small piece of that puzzle, but that is all.
@@sevret313 Responsible outdoor-cat owners rarely have bird kills since the cats have bell collars, and especially not many of the types of birds like raptors that are taken out by the focused heat radiation.
I worked at both plants. Ivanpah was definitely the coolest and I was there from start to finish as a pipefitter. The blow down and testing was crazy. The Mojave project was cool but it's not anything close to how ivanpah was. There is soo much more to these project than you were able to explain. Ivanpah has a gas heater to maintain the water at a reasonable temp so that the towere can start working as soon as there is light. It is also not steam being produced, it's super heated steam. It is 320 degrees when it goes through the venturi and every drop of water expands in volume by 1000 times, which produces the pressure needed to turn the turbine. It's really crazy when there is no need for heat exchangers. It does need a high content of salt in the water but then needs a filtration process after it re condenses. Message me back if you have any questions about the build. Like I said it was unique. Only the second one in the world at the time as far as working plants go. Also it was built by bectal company the Company that built the hoover dam.
First thing I have to say, I have mad respect for you. As to my reason for commenting, the problem with the plant outside of Las Vegas is that it is beyond expensive. Not including the operational cost, in order to see a pay off in 20 years, the cost per kilowatt has to be at least $1.30. If we compare that to photovoltaic being put on your roof, the 20 year payoff averages to about 8.5 cents per kilowatt at today's prices. Energy storage is the biggest issue in our goals towards renewables, and the sands idea does appear to be very interesting. Of course we have the future cost of what to do with the photovoltaic panels when they are no longer useful, which means that we need to work on a recycling technology as well. My fear with what we are seeing in green tech is not the tech as much as it is government being so eager to go green, that no one making the decisions is considering the steps to get there, and the challenges of waist in the future. Considering how many cars are on the road for instance, the idea that we can have 100% of drivers switch to electric cars, we would need to create enough power production to produce another 1,120 gigawatts per day. The worst part of that number is that it would mainly have to be produced during the night time. With all the new tech, it seems the best answer is nuclear. I am happy to see engineers figuring out new ideas, we just have to remember that cost has to be added to the equation. Cost and land.
you'd have said the same thing about offshore wind 20 years ago though and look how once the industry was established, and reached some scale the prices plummeted. nuclear is not cheap either
@@mralistair737 yes but the problem of the energy storage remains true. Here in Europe the countries invested hundreds of billions of euro in photovoltaic and offshore wind. Now that wind isn’t blowing blow, even sun is covered in some countries and natural gas price triple we have broken the price record for electricity. For a short period of time the UK has had the equivalent of 800€/MWh. Here in Italy 🇮🇹 we went from 50 €/MWh to over 150 €/MWh. (hope my comment is understandable)
awesome! that's so cool to hear that there is a solid option for storing solar energy during down times, fascinating to use temperature for that solution
Screw nuclear, we are trying to save our planet, not make it worse. An SCT or Newtonian telescope configuration of mirrors through a fresnel lens onto a ceramic target to heat the motive fluid, expanded through a Tesla turbine, we can generate the electricity a home needs plus store the heat in a brine tank to generate home heating or turbine steam at a home scale. Distributed system, selling excess into the grid, the perfect way to turn the scales on utilities. The beauty of a Tesla turbine is that it also operates as a compressor… as in for an AC system.
@@7sArts "Screw nuclear, we are trying to save our planet, not make it worse." So, bulldozing absolutely enormous swaths of land will make the planet... better?
When I lived in Las Vegas and would sometimes take a road trip furthest West, I would drive by this exact solar power plant! I always marveled at it's sea of mirrors, and was super curious about it. Thanks for the education Physics Girl!
These are great...for wasting land, frying birds in mid air, messing with migratory birds flight paths... Yes, this tech has been around for a while, but output vs land usage, mixed with stability and maintence, make this a relatively inefficient form of power generation.
@@dueymiller617 The price has come down on solar cells, they are now cheaper. Much cheaper, as in substantially cheaper per unit energy even when you factor in the lifetime cost of batteries for storage(roughly half the price if you have enough LiFePO4 batteries to back up power for 24 hours).
For electricity generation, I totally agree. Solar PV (+ battery storage) is clearly the better option. But there's still one use case for solar thermal plants: Process heat; e.g. for the chemical industry, for hydrogen production (via the sulfur-iodine cycle), for the steel + cement industry, or for seawater desalination. Maybe that'll make sense if they manage to lower the costs (by automating the construction + maintenance of solar tower facilities). Another great source of process heat is nuclear - with a special focus on high-temperature reactors and SMRs.
Regarding the other contra arguments (besides costs): As far as I know, those solar towers are only built in the desert. There you have plenty of space available. Land usage is a point if it means the destruction of ecosystems. But the desert is just a huge area of sand (with only a minimum of vegetation + fauna). So it shouldn't matter if we build things on top of this sand. Frying birds? In the desert, there aren't many birds. Maybe some few vultures, but that's it. And consider that we would only use a small portion of the desert for solar (no matter if PV or CSP), maybe 5-10%. That means that still 90-95% of the desert area would stay untouched.
These mirrors and the heat they generate is the reason there's a drought. The monsoon that used to come from Nevada and Arizona storm turn back and away from California. The High Pressure as Weather Casters call it : keep the storms going up to Canada 🇨🇦 with the occasional drop to the Bay area. This is and I hope an unintentional Weather Modification
I recently drove from Los Angeles to Utah and was in absolute awe of this particular solar farm. I can’t tell you guys how amazing this facility looks.
Oh, yeah, it's cool when there are only a handful of them, out of the way. And the novelty of it is fresh. But do you really want tons and tons of acreage being gobbled up by these things? Looks like a huge waste of space to me, that probably is not helping the local environment.
@@seeker1287 It also allows you to rest against them if you are climbing a high distance. Usually a long continuous run isn’t allowed, so they will have platforms at various levels, so if you fall, it might only be 20 ft as opposed to 100’s
This was a excellent series. I am keenly interested in renewable energy, especially in vehicles. I hope you do more on this field of study, thank you from Canada,
As an engineer in the utility scale solar industry, I'll highlight that heliostat systems like this were built when Photovoltaics were like 5x the price of today. CSP is not the future of renewables.
As an engineer in the utility industry who has also worked on PPAs with some of the facilities featured in the video, I can say that there have been several CSP plants built much more recently when PV prices were already pretty low (though they do keep getting cheaper). However, I agree with your conclusion; PV has already won the solar war. I'll have to look into this sand/particle tech but I doubt it will make a sizeable difference. The interesting thing is with storage. We are going to need so much of it that I don't think Li-ion is going to do the job. Possibly LiFePO4.
There are a lot of things for us all to worry about nowadays, and it seems like Physics Girl is talking about the big, big ones on my mind that tend to fill me with dread and powerlessness. I like to think it isn't just being presented with work I didn't know was happening and the "helpers" as Mr. Rogers would put it, but also the fact that she perfectly nails the tone of hope and promise, without overstepping to the point of complacency. Physics Girl, not sure if that was something you worked hard on, but it was perfect and just what I needed right now to get back to solving my little corner of problems. Thank you.
The best part is when you fly by these, they blind you from every direction (I know, first world pilot problems), AND all the free, already cooked birds it roasts. Pretty cool.
"If they make more energy than they are contracted, they pay a fine" So, if they make enough energy to need less of other forms of electricity production they get penalized?
That’s really the point of these episodes. If they could take their excess generated power(or heat) and use it at after the sun goes down or the wind slows down we would solve many of these problems
They get a fine because the grid has to supply exactly the right amount of electricity demanded (i.e. purchased in advance). |f you produce more, the electrical frequency increases. Ideally, we should find a way to store this extra energy in batteries
It isnot strange if you understand how big a problem too much energy is. Of the power plants produce much more power than is consumed the entire grid can break down. It is a real art to balance the production with the consumption to prevent that from happening
Could you do a video which explains the relative power output of a few various types of energy plants? How many square metres of pv panels do you need to power the same area of CSP? How does this compare to coal power. One of my feelings about CSP is that its a very industrial process, which isn't as well suited to mixed agricultural solutions like wind (and potentially PV if done somewhat sparsely). Which is fine depending on the application of course.
Nuclear power is smaller produces more power all the time with less injury and wastes, nuclear fuel is 70,000,000 times as energy dense as diesel which is of course hundreds of times more energy dense than solar or wind.
I love this tech, but the tower fields are deadly for birds- the heat instantly incinerates them. I had heard they were working on that, I was hoping there would be something mentioned about it here, as to if they have found a solution.
Yeah, the power towers do fry birds, that's why I think the parabolic trough collectors are probably more friendly to wildlife. The birds don't tend to fly between the parabolic reflector and the absorber tube.
You should check out the Tonopah "basically failed" solar project. Oh, and you forgot to mention how many birds burst into flames when they pick the wrong flight path.
@4:32 you were asking about the heat exchange I guess. The heat is transferred through tubes. They don’t mix with each other, but the heat transfer fluid flow through one long tube. The heat then gets transferred to the long tubes carrying water and converts it to steam. One thing to understand about steam turbines are, they spin really fast. The revs are high. Steam comes in at high pressure, spins the turbine and then a condenser is used on the output to cool down the steam to water making the pressure low. This improves the efficiency of the turbine. Easy way of saying, high force on one side and low on the other side makes the turbine spin really well.
photovoltaics still outperform mechanical turbine generation for cost per terawatt as the overhead is cheaper; there isn't critical machinery that needs to be in place. I'm a fan of alternative solutions tho
If photovoltaics outperform turbines, why would people still use anything with turbines (e.g. nuclear or fossil)? Maybe you mean CSP turbine power generation instead of turbines in general.
@@niklaskoskinen123 : building a steam cycle costs more than building a PV plant that generates an equal amount of electricity over the year. So if you're building a new plant, you'll just about never choose steam power, no matter what the heat source is. The exception is if it's cheap enough that you can run it while the PV is not producing as much power (e.g. at night, or in winter) and power prices rise, so that leaves some room for natural gas combined-cycle plants. And why would anyone still *use* existing plants is that they exist. With coal, even that's not cheap enough: it's more expensive to operate a coal-fired plant that someone gives you for free than to build a new wind or solar farm. But with other heat sources it remains cheaper to keep using them than to build new renewables.
I notice immediately the passion I feel always too for this technique. You don't need rare materials from other countries. Further it seems robust and easy to repair and recycle. And finally the possibility to have molten salts or here special sand as storage medium. Of course you need open skies for this. I didn't like the first plant because it looked way too complex and "macho". That could be because of the huge power output they aim for. But intuitively it looks like this technique has a optimal balance between scale, efficiency,costs of running and maintenance and here they could be overshooting that optimum. Since the concentrated solar beams are less hot than with tower beams, it's possible a bird survives a short contact (but how??) I don't understand the problems with Ivanpah. Michael Moore jumped on it sadly and I start to think "some people wanted problems already during the design" although I'am against conspiracy thinking;
I loved this. Thank you! 💗 I drive by these a lot, including the remote ones when going to the isolated desert peaks, so it was fun to get a more interactive presentation on this vs reading open file reports!
I'm so glad to see this alternatives to fossils, but just how a regiert or a well affects the ecosystem they're located in, I just keep wondering how this burning land expelled it's whole population of animals and vegetation that sometimes is much more delicate than in more hospitable places
Solarthermal power plants can have benefits for plants and animals there. Under those mirrors, evaporation is reduced. That means plants have more water available to grow and more plants mean more food for animals. Deserts usually mean to much sun and too little water, so those mirrors remove the liminting factor for plant growth. But of course, every human construction has disadvantages for the biosphere. And as long as there are humans who want stuff, we will have to deal with that. The question is how can we minimize the impact. Right now fossil fuel powered plants are the most destructive form of energy generation, not only because of emissions, but because of the mining, transporting and using, that affects land and water. Fossil fuels have to be mined where they are, regardless of how many species there are. Artificial structures in tropical rainforests do kill more plants and animals than those in a desert. Again, we can only minimize damage, and for that goal deserts are better suited than mining fossil fuels in areas with much more plants and animals. And then there is the emission aspect. Climate change kills or at least threatens a huge number of species. Plants and animals die out because they cannot adapt fast enough. All those factors have to be taken into account.
@@l-dogtheman1685 slight problem with your theory. Those mirrors are there to redirect the sunlight towards the central tower. No light no plant growth.
@@Lorkanthal that's what I thought, too, at first. But the truth is there is still enough sunlight for photosynthesis. The overall efficiency of photosynthesis is actually really low, only 0.8% by some estimate (compared to 22% for photovoltaic). So the plant doesn't use much light in the first place. And even in the shadow you still have light (diffuse light), especially in the desert. If you take off your sunglasses there, you are still blinded by the light, even though you are in the shadow. So sunlight is not the limiting factor, humans can easily use some of it and there is still enough left. But water is super rare in the desert, it is the resource that limits plant growth. Every single drop of water immediately evaporates in the sunlight, and without water any vegatation dies. In the shadow, water evaporates less quickly. This works with photovoltaic power plants as well, which is why they are considered for agriculture, too (agrivoltaics). But for deserts, solar towers are perfect because the hot climate is not a problem but an advantage.
I loved this one, as it addressed the area which no one else has been talking about. Storage solutions :) There is some really cool development in high temperature liquid metal batteries. A professor from MIT is leading the field.
What is amazing about renewable energy is that the department of energy made a short film in the 30s and all the technology listed in the film in the 30s is still what is being listed to day as new and ground breaking. humm
@@ps.2 I believe it was from the departmen that was responsible for the atomic bomb, but the point is what they talk about today is the same tech from a short film from the 30's that was shown in theaters. So which department does not matter as much as it was made by the united states government and if they made the same today they would show the same tech. The end of the video talk about the round wind mills they may be called wind veins as new tech and when they talk about the round wind mills or veins today they act like it is new tech
@@Inertia888 that's why the are searching the ocean floors for old rocket engines because people involved with creating space flight admit they can't build engines as good as what is playing on the ocean floor from 60s or 70s, even if better materials they still can't make anything better than before computers. all the new space companys have addmited to it. That why they want the original space tech and are searching the ocean floors for it
@@ps.2 yea if you look at DOE HISTORY they say DOE HAD PREDECESSOR AGENCIES, so any one that actually deals with tech knows they are on in the same just because things get reorganized and name changes does not mean a different agency or department, it's called lineage descended from so can be called the same, just as department of war and department of defense it's the same thing just different name. You must be a TH-cam genius, sorry you do not have the intellect to create something
Errant birds don't go through the focal point given there's a (very visible) building there. When not collecting heat, the solution to avoid frying birds is not to shift the focal point of all the mirrors up the same distance, but have different points for each mirror.
On this, I can’t. Too many birds are killed by flying into the mirror fields. They are literally burned in flight and die from the burns or the fall. But this series of videos was great. Informative, relevant and well presented. Kudos.
I'm sure that's an easy solution. But the number of animals killed this way must surely be fewer than the number killed by, say, supertankers crisscrossing the ocean, roadtankers crisscrossing the country, oil spills, coal mining and transportation, etc etc.
@@jeffkeith637 so the many stripes out the few. Just like wind turbines. Killing thousands of birds and bats. Because electricity to your computer is more important.
@@jeffkeith637 Oooookay, how does a supertanker or a road tanker kill birds? Runs over them? Coal mines!? Really? What, the canaries they (traditionally) use in the mine? Bwwaahaha.
I just discovered your channel and I'm hooked after only three videos! Your geeky enthusiasm is so infectious! You need to collaborate with DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse. Although his in-depth knowledge of consumer level solar power is amazing, it his infectious enthusiasm that keep us watching hours and hours of content! You two could change the entire world's view of consumer level solar technology!
We all wish there could be a really good general replacement for fossil fuels. Unfortunately, there are only replacements that work in certain environments, such as on rivers or in windy areas. A good general replacement would quickly be adopted on a large scale.
@@jamesrobinson9176 it's on the ground so ideally no airliners will be anywhere near it. The heat dispersion follows an inverse square law so it falls off very quickly as you move away from the site.
@@abebuckingham8198 these mirrors literally create a solar death ray. And yes, pilots are required to avoid these airspaces, too great a risk of blinding the pilot and their instruments.
I prefer the idea of the light dam, as described in one of the Pratchett books. Using mirrors to store light from the daytime to be used at night. I guess it only works with slow light, it was heavier than the light we get today, so it pools easier. The photons we get today are always rushing around, which makes them light headed...
From what I've heard conditions aren't always right for large scale solar electricity generation. If you set one up in the desert you have plenty of sunshine, but there is little water. I'm wondering if the synthetic oil and molten salt generators need less water and therefore are more efficient in desert environments.
There has been a few documentaries made in the UK about this CSP plant you featured It's a shame that you only got to see older tech for CSP but atleast it's getting out to the masses
Hydroelectric powerplants are on their way out. Huge costs and time to get them producing, continous drought everywere means that they don't hold as much water as they used to, create big changes in the climate in their vicinity, not to mention destroying a valley and wildlife. And we haven't had to dismantle a big one so far, which adds to its costs. Definitely nuclear powerplants are less pollutant including the mining side of the business.
Kurzgesagt, Veritasium, Electroboom, Kyle and physics girl all uploaded what a nice day!
I thought I was the only one who noticed this
This is a great day!
lol so truuee
Yoooo
Kyle...from Tenacious D?
Oh you mean Kyle Hill aka Sci_Phile
That's cool. I didn't know some of the towers can hold heat.
First!
More like hot
Time to setup a miniature tower at your garage..or may be a next project after your electric hummer..or may be setup up one in parallel so that it can charge the car in the night. Oh wait you already have batteries that store power from solar.
your head also
I didn't know some of them couldn't hold heat lol. We all learned something new :)
I made some of those parabolic mirrors at Noor and Noor2 which are installed in Morocco. Specifically, I was the plant engineer at Rioglass Solar in Surprise, AZ, and I designed, tested, and validated the packaging to ship 2 tons of glass (per package) across the world. I also 'owned' the mirror line, furnace line, product printing, etcetera.
One small nitpick: it's not a focal 'point' but a focal line.
Is the focal point the radius?
@@koendos3 No you get a focal point when using a circular parabolic mirror. These are linear parabolic mirrors, so the light is not concentrated in a point but a line.
@@koendos3 no, the focal point of a parabola is opposite from the directorix line. Focal point is where all parallel, incident rays (from the sun in this case) are directed to. This applies to a parabolic curve in 2d (x and y only) space. Since the solar arrays are parabolic troughs in 3-d space ( x, y, and z), all those infinite focal points line up to form a focal line. System efficiency depends on that line having a very narrow (narrowest possible in practice) width to minimize energy lost to reflection.
Also, those parabolic troughs are 4-segment arrays composed of 2 inner parabolic segments and 2 outer ones. They are of course symmetric for max solar capture because they are computer- steered to point optimally toward the sun.
@@nicklockard I wonder if at some future point it will be possible to make a Sun-fed linear LASER, focussed in a line.??
❤ from India. Wish you a speedy recovery
In the early 1980's I had a solar water heater on my roof. It tracked the sun with parabolic mirrors. The same as in this video, only a lot smaller. Side note it also made shade on my roof and kept the house cooler.
@Gary Tompkins: Nice! That is sometimes referred to as "passive" solar in my experience. It is commonplace, in areas such as Taiwan, to observe water storage tanks on roofs with similar goals in mind! However, it is prevalent to utilize on demand water heaters in such areas for showers and such, so the water storage tanks on roof tops are more to provide free pre-heating, lower operating costs, and as an added benefit: better water pressure due to gravity's effects!
That type of attention to detail can be done everywhere and while the energy wins are not jaw dropping, "everything counts in large amounts" small gains add up over time!
Ha! Love the DM reference.
@@grey5626 " It tracked the sun with parabolic mirrors. "
@@grey5626 no, it is active solar, passive solar is things that don't use tracking systems or need to be messed with after installation like south facing windows, and awnings that are long enough to completely block the noonday sun in the summer, but are short enough to let it in during the winter.
Did it use true parabolic mirrors or cylindrical parabolic mirrors? The latter would be a lot cheaper. Did it use metallic mirrors? Again, a lot cheaper.
I did a project on the molten salt CSP towers back in my college Heat Transfer class! SUPER fascinating stuff, and I had the same reaction when I drove by the Ivanpah power station for the first time too! I was like "IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?!?!?!?" and had to exit and check it out haha.
Awesome series, Dianna! I really enjoyed it :)
Do a piece on this one. Or are you already on it??
Keep going
Dianna. Pfffffff =))
Since I vanwpaugh was a boondoggle that didn't produce power, they shut it down. Now molten salts can also transfer great amounts of heat safely in a nuclear reactor Terra watts more energy, since it is 24/7,obviosly takes thousands of times less space with attendant reduction of waste, they still haven't decommissioned Ivanapaugh,never produced one watt of useful power.
Did you consider total cost of maintenance? That solar planet outside Las Vegas was $1B failure th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
Fun fact: Using mirrors to concentrate light is not mutually exclusive with using photovoltaics. Concentration photovoltaics is also a thing, where you use PV cells that are optimized for far more light than conventional photovoltaics. For that matter, there are photovoltaic/thermal hybrid systems out there that use a thermal transfer fluid to cool the PV cells.
There are many many flavors of solar power :)
Amazing there are even Moon powered ovens in use today! Not large scale, though interesting and I do wondering about what a scaled up utility system can absorb from the Moon light?
Photovoltaic cells are usually somewhat heat sensative, so you need to cool the cells, and seperate the infra red light from the rest(ideally using a reflective filter that points at a concentrated solar thermal genorator) since lower frequencies aren't useful for most photovoltaic cells and still produce heat.
Would be awesome if the price point of high temp PV cells came down in price. Is interesting seeing where people have placed heat exchangers on the back of solar panels to use that energy for water or radiant heating.
Also, photovoltaics might be better for small scale, roof top projects, but where there's land available maybe the heat variant is better? Either way, they can coexist
But they have temprature limitation. Can they go to 1000s° and store energy?
I saw on the discovery channel recently that place was shut down. Too much maintenance keeping the mirrors clean and other issues. Cost per kilowatt hour was up to $ 1.20 while most of us pay 7-8 cents a kilowatt hour.
Something that wasn't covered, but which seems compelling to me, is that CSP, unlike PV, does not strictly rely upon heavy metals and a toxic manufacturing process.
th-cam.com/video/sp2jFRr599s/w-d-xo.html
But are far more expensive than PV. The economics actually cripples these designs.
PV relies on vast amounts of coal with attendant pollution but also Chinese death camps, but unlike CSP,PV actually makes a tiny bit of electrical power.there are still csp operating but not one met benchmarks.
Total cost of maintenance economics of CSP has been a $1B failure - th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
Infini_Ryu 💯 correct, these have been economic FAILURES! Physics girl misinformation. th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
My first job when I was 15 was repairing heliostat controllers that moved mirrors to track the sun to do something similar for a powerplant outside Barstow, CA. I loved this video so much, Thank you!
Thanks~~~~
You might like this one too… consider total cost of maintenance of the CSP, can be epic failure th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
That has to be the coolest job for a teenager, ever...
Had several of these built in my hometown. All of which are gone now because it was relatively inefficient when it came to creating power. Albeit, it worked, but they transitioned quickly to putting down solar panels instead. Another problem is that the concentration of heat from all the mirrors would literally fry birds who flew in the path of the reflections. Nonetheless, it’s an incredible and effective science, and it works, however there are complications and inefficiencies that tend to ruin its potential.
You’re right. The solar water towers aren’t as efficient with energy production as originally thought. And lots of cost towards Maintanance of constantly rotating mirrors.
Instant fried chicken
@@cycleoflife7331 exactly lol
birds don't get fried. that's a myth. if you actually watch the video, the focal point is a meter infron of the mirrors. and you can't just instantly fry anything with a mirror.
@@cycleoflife7331 hahahahah🤣
A thorium reactor would take up way less space, generate overwhelmingly more power, and help us with our research into developing better methods of space propulsion. China is already building them. A comparison study would be great.
Fusion power is becoming more relevant because of advances in science
Need to stop the unnecesarry friction between countries n start working together.. why spend trillions of dollars on "defense" program???
A thorium reactor would also be much more expensive and come way too late to the game. We need to decarbonize energy production today, not in 10+ years with experimental never tested in real production reactors. They would come too late and be too uncertain.
@@jomsies Nuclear energy is sustainable, especially if we use all of the uranium from our nuclear warheads. We have enough uranium reserves to power our entire species for 200 years with nuclear fission without the need to mine anymore, and by that time we would have nuclear fusion to swap over to. Fusion is the future, but we need to convert to gen 4 nuclear reactors now, as well as using other sustainable energy sources like wind, hydroelectric, and solar where it's applicable.
@@lilithva9111 people say nuclear energy isn't "sustainable" but it is close to it. When we run out of uranium as you say something better should be available. And if it's not, well not our problem😂
Solution is there, but people are so scared of it. Radiation is scrutinized nowadays just because of Japan and Tsjernobyl
My son and I drove past these facilities about 10 years ago. Up to that point I had never heard of it, so it was amazing!
I saw the one outside Las Vegas too from the highway… so impressive. Sad to hear it failed: th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
This series has been so enlightening! I've really enjoyed the way you've introduced us to all these different solutions and compared them while keeping it easy enough to understand. This stuff is important but intimidating and often overwhelming, so I've really appreciated having you as a guide :)
you could build this mirror in every desert, it would still never be enough energy, and i don't even mention all the rare minerals we need
Solar tower power plants can have benefits for plants and animals there. Under the mirrors, evaporation is reduced. That means plants have more water available to grow and more plants mean more food for animals. Deserts usually mean to much sun and too little water, so those mirrors remove the liminting factor for plant growth.
Mirrors consist mainly of aluminium and glass, so they are constructed from the most abundant elements on the planet. We have more than enough of the necessary materials to cover all deserts with those kind of plants, and those would provide more energy than the world currently needs. We wouldn't even need every desert. And the bigger we build them, the cheaper and more efficient storage we can have because of the square-cube law. Storing the heat with molten salt can allow electricity production 24/7 without needing fossil fuels, but unfortunately those power plants right now are only built with no storage or only a very small storage tank. The storage is not as efficient as lithium-ion, but up to 100 times cheaper.
It's a lie
@@slaytronic yup, birds get insta-fried. Made me wonder if I could weaponize this technology for home defense...during the day anyway. lol
If only she covered the total economic cost and how these have been failures 🤷♂️ th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
Really appreciate this series. There is so much hype about things it’s hard to sort it out at times. A basic overview is sure helpful for some of us idiots.
This series is BS.
There’s NO MENTION of the solution to ALL OUR ENERGY CONCERNS.
THORIUM REACTORS!!
PG is a fraud.
@ivan schafeldt greetings i am Lord teleportdinero i am friend not foe
The smartest people hiding behind 'us idiots'. I see you mate😂
Bottom line mostly useless.
have to think more widely about the entire system and costs though, else still risk failure th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
Thanks!
I'm a middle school science teacher, so happy to share your videos with my students to inspire them about where their place can be in energy solutions!
Permanently destroying hectares of plant and animal habitat can't be seriously thought of as a solution. I thought that this was what we were trying to avoid in the first place.
@@anthonymorris5084 yes this issue is so troubling and it's part of the equation
Fried birds galore.
From what I remember there were more or less 3 reasons I remember as to why this isn't used as much compared to PV, despite it being able to fix one of the most important problems with renewables: intermittency.
These problems are:
1) Cost: CSP costs around 3-4 times what PV costs, so that immediately isn't really great. If we can get storage costs low enough, PV+storage is also more interesting.
2) Geographical limitation: You can't just place these plants everywhere, the efficiency reduces a lot depending on the available sunlight. And ofcourse you need space and lots of it. With PV you can if need be place it in smaller units in a same location to avoid obstacles, elevation differences etc. aren't that much of a problem, with CSP this can be more of a problem. Another problem here is that CSP isn't usually located close to the main energy users, so you possibly need to install connection wires etc too. With PV you can place them on the roofs, car parks, nearby fields, ... limiting these kind of connection costs.
3) Water usage: These mirrors need to be kept clean. This often requires water use to do so. The problem is that these systems usually are in more arid places where water is more valuable. Ofcourse you might have ways to get around this, but they will usually be less effective or more costly. This was for example one of the controversies with CSP plants in Morocco that were subsidies by the EU, I believe.
Does CSP has a place in the grid mix? Yes, I think they definitely will play a role. Are they likely to become one of the main sources/compete with PV? Doubtfull. They might be usefull for energy intensive industries that could possibly be build around them and then either you use their storage to keep these industries going 24/7 or it is used to help balance the grid in the evening/at night.
If you were to ignore things like costs, political stability (for example northern Africa region), ... , CSP would likely be the best source to get us fully renewable. in fact they are probably one of the only renewable sources that could completely on its own get us to 100% renewable; No battery storage, no PV, wind, hydro, ... needed, just CSP. But it would be expensive and you'd need to use very long connections and the losses that go with it.
All of which are reasons to go nuclear rather than solar or wind. ;)
@@throwaway692 I only talked about CSP and somehow your conclusion of this one topic is 'Nuclear because wind and solar not good'? Honestly CSP might, if scaled well, be just as good if not better than nuclear imo. Ofcourse this is based on nuclear currently used build. Thorium might change that, but first we'll need to have a modern thorium reactor operating for several years.
Would it be possible to use a compound other than water to clean the mirrors? Possibly mixing it with something like acetone to keep them clean but not siphon too much water from local cities
@@fflam1383 Honestly I don't know. But we are talking about a lot of mirrors that need to be kept clean from things like dust etc.
@@MDP1702 CSP is solar. Solar is not reliable 24/7. Nuclear power is. QED.
I really love your “as they say in the industry… They don’t, but they should” jokes in the past few videos. Gets a laugh out of me every time😂
A physics minor girl new to solar mirrors??? Do they hand out diplomas at street corners nowadays? To top it off she thinks she's entitled to an opinion in her green psychosis nonsense.
The only solution to our energy challenge is nuclear power - fast reactors in particular. Solar and wind are complete nonsense.
What should they say in the industry about the smell of vaporized bird, bat, and moth?
@@TH-cam_Stole_My_Handle_Too at first, borium was the best element for nuclear power plants .. Yet.. In the end they chose uranium..
LOBBY
LOBBY
LOBBY..
@@TH-cam_Stole_My_Handle_Too Almost no one here would be new to solar mirrors, but i bet +98% of the people on this coment section even if they have a physics degree have never been on such power plants
@@TH-cam_Stole_My_Handle_Too this type of comment is so useless. Please do something that actually help fix our environmental crisis, thanks!
Any coverage on the negative traits? I heard that these powerplants need natural gas to heat up in the morning. Also the concentrated solar beams burn wildlife flying through them and there are problems with broken mirrors littering the ground.
Also not discussed is the amount of maintenance and material needed to keep the mirrors clean. Efficiency drops quickly with dust and dirt settling on them. It takes water....lots and lots of water. Something not exactly abundant in dry sunny climates.
These negative traits can be fixed and are not permanent. If there’s any trait that is worth mentioning, it’s those that are inherent in the design. I’m pretty sure these bright engineers are fully aware there are broken mirrors on the ground. It’s all a matter of systemically solving the problem as opposed to inefficiently cleaning it up as you go.
@@ZeroZoneZZ So only the negative traits that you deem worthy of mentioning are allowed? And apparently all you have to do is "solve the problem", right? So, why don't they just "solve the problem" if it's so damn easy? Your ignorance is an amazing feat.
@@calvin99991 I'm sure there's another way besides water
@@ZeroZoneZZ Pretty sure when the bird flies through and drops to the ground in a smoking pile of feathers, it's permanent.
How do they transfer the heat from the sand to water?
How do they store the sand?
How do they move the hot sand around?
What kind of sand is it?
I am surprised you don't already know this.
@@awkward-stranger Why does it surprise you?
Yeah, she seems to gloss over the details a lot in this series. But maybe it's meant more for children? Not sure who the target audience is.
Same here, I think a lot of explanation is missing from the sand part of the video.
The special shape of the mirrors is also referred to as "parabolic troughs" they're used here in Pakistan to heat up water in tubes in order to produce steam and drive the boards of a small turbine.
These parabolic troughs make a lot more sense than the big reflective CSR systems. For a start they don't kill as many birds.
They say that around 8 min… 🤪😂😂👍
I love that you have SUCH a curious mind; that you still LOVE to learn about new stuff!
This was great, I shared it with a bunch of mates, and it made me feel so much hope for the future. Thank you for the work you and your team put in to making it!
Awesome video. At 7:38 you said, "I came into this entire series being like, we're going to learn about the best technology and that's what's going to go in everywhere." I think this supports the idea that there is no "one size fits all" solution to generating power. In places like Death Valley, this is a no brainer. In the North Sea, wind is really good. In Iceland, geothermal is awesome. There are also areas where nuclear is the clear answer. The logical answer is to use what is best, but we get into trouble when the people who decide what to use, don't care if it is the best solution.
Perfectly said bro!!!
Absolutely true!
I think it's not saturated steam but rather superheated steam. Because the water particles in saturated steam would impinge on the turbine blades and damage them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the steam turbines that we work with use superheated steam
yeah the generators make saturated steam, but there are other parts that turn the saturated steam into super-heated steam. you right saturated steam would cause a lot of damage on the turbines.
Thank you for making this series.
It's like the last 5 years of my TH-cam nightly binging comprised into one series!
I saw "Planet of the Humans," a Michael Moore-produced film last year; it's time to watch it again. It was shouted down by those who didn't like it attacking their sacred cows in renewable energy industry.
Some of these CSPs are the like the wings of Icarus, burnt and melted in the sun. Epic fail th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
Would be nice at the end of the series if you do a summary chart showing power efficiency, cost effectiveness, kinds of contracts that apply to selling each type of energy.
Also include fossil fuels.
And don't forget to add reliability, abundance, and cost.
Yeah, post that.
I dare you.
@@Conflict_Boardgaming I'm a petroleum engineer and I don't think you're going to like the findings about abundance. (Hint, the sun is functionally infinite).
@@CSpottsGaming And I don't think you will like the reliability, efficiency, or cost of wind, solar, and "mirrors".
Meanwhile, nuclear wipes the floor with both.
@@greyrifterrellik5837 Thorium Molten Salt Reactors in particular
As I traveled 2 days ago from San Diego to Las Vegas I was amazed by how shiny these structures were. I thought: What a great subject for Physics Girl and/or Veritassium to talk about. Now my mind is completely boggled by the fact that 4 days ago this video was posted 😂🤯.
I was impressed by them as well… may have also been in Gattaca? Sadly it FAILED th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
Can't help but think about Fallout NV seeing this. "They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard"
The Helios One was based on that power plant, wasn't it?
As I remember the solar power plant from a video game of 2010, it kinda puts into perspective how this technology is not brand new. Yet not a lot of people talk about it.
@@Diekyl The lobby for fossil fuels is still very strong.
@@cartermariano Yeah it was!! Idk why but Helios one was always one of my favorite spots in NV
🤣🤣🤣🫁🤣🤣🤣
I remember these from family holidays in Spain, early nineties I think. Even in the mid of day the tower would look like it was getting hit by a thousand spotlights, it was so bright.
Simple and effective technology we need more of.
I'm so glad I finally know what those are. I was in a bus riding across the Negev Desert and I saw what looked to be the eye of Sauron in the distance. I never told anyone about my experience because I thought nobody would believe me or know what it was. Since that day I was always curious about that and thought about it every now and then, but I never came up with anything. Thank you for finally giving me closure on this clean energy phenomenon :D
I didn't know that much about environmental technology before this series. This series is much informative and interesting at the same time .
I would check out "Planet of the Humans" to get some balance in this discussion...
Then check out MEER Reflection Project to regain some hope, as it's probably the ONLY technology that's sufficient at this late of a stage in the catastrophic heating taking place as we speak.
And share the message because we will need the whole planet to get on board and support it!
@@MattAngiono nuclear energy will always be more environmentally friendly than renewables will ever be.
You don't know much now, this is just nonsensical corporate propaganda.
With solar energy possibly causing MORE drivers of climate change and CO2 emissions, I'll take a hard pass.
@@michaelverdouw9551 sort of... it requires A LOT of caveats...
The waste from nuclear is FAR worse so it must be managed appropriately, and that is not the case for many current plants.
Constant maintenence is required to keep the waste from leaking into the environment, which takes energy and humans.
Only when the waste is permanently stored without the need for additional energy and effort is your statement true.
Right now, if civilization fails, we will unfortunately end up with a toxic earth.
The risks of this can't be understated.
Once we can completely rule out the problem of waste, and deal with what is currently requiring maintenence, then I would agree with your statement.
We should have a much larger effort to deal with these issues, so if the power goes out, there's no catastrophe.
All development of new nuclear would certainly need to mitigate these risks of waste entirely, but that's certainly not the cheapest, nor the quickest way to satisfy our energy needs.
However, I agree it should be considered for the long term, assuming we take this all into account.
It always amazed me how nearly all of our power generation is identical once you get to the "water is turned into steam" part. The only difference is where the heat to boil the water comes from.
Well, water is cool! Get it? ;-)
Could've even gone with, "(heating) water is tight", considering the pressure … okay, I'll see myself out now.
@@jamielondon6436 LMAO BRUH
Yes. I think we need to get off the “one solution” idea. As we’ve seen with our dependence on fossil fuels, when we put all our eggs in one bucket… well, it’s not great. Solar, wind, hydro, etc… and new, innovative sources. Storage is equally important.
Great video and thanks for the information!
Exactly! This specialized myopic “one solution for all” (new world order type) grandstanding is doomed to fail th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
I think that nuclear fission is by far our best bet for ubiquitous, on-demand power. Fusion is actually coming along pretty nicely too.
We had a few of these in the southern Central Valley of California, they used the tower style. Now they’re just broken mirrors in the fields.
And remember that photovoltaic cells degrade over time.
Its a disaster, creating waste, and destroying landscapes. 1,000s of tons of broken glass. Plus the fuel needed to manufacture that glass = pollution.
Renewable energy has not improved the climate on iota, cheaper current from taxpayer paid for turbines backed up by natural gas and coal that don't pay for their pollution edges out nuclear which is the only always on low carbon source hydro has practically vanished here in the West with the drought caused by shutting nuke plants.
Keep thinking and innovating, but BIG PICTURE / total cost - else these are myopic EPIC fails th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
7:28 Physics Girl missed mentioning that… why don’t we see more of these failed CSP plants?? 🤔🤦♂️
One thing I loved about this series was seeing how genuinely excited the workers at these places were to be showing off this awesome technology
How many tens of thousands of square miles do we need to waste on mirror farms for something that only works during sunny days? Are we supposed to make huge batteries consisting of poisonous chemicals that need to be replaced constantly? I think you should curb your emotions and think logically. You sound like an Eskimo that buys ice cubes from a Salesman.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 It works in the winter, too, obviously; It just doesn't get as hot. It probably even works on an overcast day to a certain extent. Germany has the greatest use of photovoltaic in the world and their climate is pretty much overcast during most of the year.
@@Nilguiri how does it work at night? How good is Germany's photovoltaic usage? 100% 50% 30%? I don't see Germany bragging about how they're doing so good. I suppose you would settle for a car that worked okay some of the times when the Sun is up. No, I'm not settling.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 What a wonderful anecdote! Who are you, Donald Trump?
Ever heard of Google or Wikipedia? It took me about 3.5 seconds to find this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany and it turns out that they are second, behind China, not first, as I previously thought. I learned something new, did you? Yeah, nah.
And I could not give a flying f*** if you're "settling" or not, Cletus. Stay in school.
@@Nilguiri I greatly enjoyed those last two comments that you deleted. Personal attacks are always bread-and-butter for the losers in the world. No I'm not Donald Trump but you could very well be sleepy Joe Biden. Thanks again for the amusing replies that you were too ashamed to leave in public.
Plant, operational, and maintenance cost? Efficiency? How is it compares to wind, solar, hydro?
the mirrors don't last very long... I've heard only around 5 - 6 years... (I'm no expert though)
@@vishaljoy6802 I thought so too because the whole system have to deal with high heat and mechanical moving parts.
@@Somagarn Yep. And dust and wind and stuff.
Actually I was doing some research and I found this documentary...
You see "renewable energy" (solar, wind and biomass)... is a huge scam... I know this sounds like an anti-vaxxer but please refer this video:
th-cam.com/video/Zk11vI-7czE/w-d-xo.html&ab_channel=MichaelMoore
The solar mirrors are at 31:09
You will be horrified by what you see and understand that we are believing a lie...
And pls reply to this comment. We need real debate and discussion.
CSP LCOE usually is around 110-140 $/MWh, for comparison this is around 30-45 $/MWh for a similarly sized large scale pv plant,
50$/MWh for onshore wind,
70-100$/MWh for offshore wind,
45-60$/MWh for coal plants (though this price is ever increasing due to taxes, environmental demands, coal cost, ...),
gas 70-90/100 $/MWh.
Hydro is difficult since it depends a lot on the scale etc. but the larger scales hydro usually is around 20-35$/MWh.
Nuclear again is a difficult one. Old nuclear was around 25-35$/MWh, but new ones tend to be much more expensive. Recent LCOE numbers put it between 100-180$/MWh, though 60-70$/MWh might be more correct.
@@vishaljoy6802 You did not just referenced Planet of the humans. That is one of the most disgracefull documentaries out there currently. It uses old outdated information and images, based on based on a subjective personal experience and often if not misinforming at least misleading its audience. Even if they brought it out around 2015 it would be barely acceptable, releasing it in 2020 with no new information since 2014 or so is just unacceptable, especially since renewables progressed massively between 2015 and 2020. One of their experts that was filmed being very sceptical even before they released it had change his opinion to mildly or even very optimistic.
Specifically to the solar part:
1) they said solar panels were around 10% efficient and around 10 years of operating. The 10% was around 10-15 years ago true, currently it is around 19-20% on average. And the operating time was just bullocks, solar panels are aimed at an operational lifetime of around 25-30 years, they could even go longer than that, but at that point their output has been reduced beyond acceptable levels (60-70% of their original capacity) and replacing it with newer more efficient panels while recycling the old ones is a better option.
2) they showed a desolate area left behind after a solar farm was removed. One small problem with that. That farm was in a renovation stage. The old panels that had been there for decades and reached end of life were removed before they filmed and new more efficient panels were installed after they filmed at that location, so that desolate place doesn't even exist.
3) they also talked about an CSP in Nevada or California (I forgot where it was) and told about how it needed natural gas in the morning to spin it up. One small problem with that is that the plant was one of the first CSP plants, modern ones don't use natural gas at any point of their operation. Moreover what they don't mention is that even this first inefficient CSP plant reduced natural gas usage by more than 65% compared to a regular natural gas powerplant.
I can keep naming things about the documentary where they were misleading, or used too old information etc. but then I am going on for the next hour or more, so I'll just stick with this.
There were some good points, however these were overshadowed by the bad ones. Moreover these good points didn't offer nothing new at all. The main message of the documentary of focusing more on saving energy and resources by for example limiting usage etc. has been a core pillar of the green movement for decades.
The next thing is probably a bit more controversial. At the end they talk about overpopulation and that our population should shrink and that mostly the undeveloped world is the problem (at least in terms of growth), that is not a problem at all. We don't use too many resources due to overpopulation, we use too many resources due to the way we manage them and the large amount of resources that we waste. The earth can support several times the current population if we'd much better manage the resources. However I can understand if people were to disagree on this last point.
This video is so awesome and it connected so many dots beyond just the initial answer to the question that caught my attention in your videos title
"They produce more energy than what is needed. That is the problem"
Suffering from success😂😂
Are you trying to con people into believing that that one installation will power the entire United States? That installation displaces a small-town and probably couldn't run a small town oversized that it displaces. Plus it only works on sunny days not at night not in Cloudy weather. Only a fool or a con man would call that success.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 Bruh, it was a joke🤦♂️
@@earnestleesaddened3779 brrrruhhhhhhh
@@firulais3065 bro what?
I'd be interested to know how long it takes for these installations to cover their own emissions of constructions? I presume it's relatively quickly but it would be good to have the numbers somewhere
probably only a few days time.. a lot of the materials used are being produced by green energy
You’ve got to crack a few eggs to make an omelette
And destruction as well, and maintenance too
@@ayblgr3202 use your head, don't crack the egg and you end up with a chicken.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 Your statement is vague. Elaborate so we can give you an answer
"Modern solutions to old pollution." Sounds like the old adage, "Dilution is the solution to pollution."
We need more people with practical concern than political junkies. Most political junkies are poor.
There used to be such a joke on the Internet: What do boys with different salaries think before going to bed?
Monthly salary of 50,000: The team needs to integrate again;
Monthly salary of 30,000: That plan needs to be changed;
Monthly salary of 20,000: what does that customer like;
Monthly salary of 5,000: P40 pixels will definitely hang Apple;
Monthly salary of 3,000: Bentley Bentayga is definitely not as good as Mercedes-Maybach S600；
Monthly salary of 2,000: The influence of Russia's attitude towards NATO's eastward expansion on the US global strategy.
th-cam.com/video/aJOjw9Y1ISM/w-d-xo.html centuries-old mysteries of the Sun. You will love this
These mirrors and the heat they generate is the reason there's a drought.
The monsoon that used to come from Nevada and Arizona storm turn back and away from California.
The High Pressure as Weather Casters call it : keep the storms going up to Canada 🇨🇦 with the occasional drop to the Bay area. This is and I hope an unintentional Weather Modification
Im honestly loving learning about all these renewable energy sources, it makes me excited!
All these CSP were failures being decommissioned.
Exciting yes! Just think big picture total costs and not myopic specialization only, leads to EPIC failure th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
Paul Bedichek yes, I was hopeful but just learned about that too. Icarus wings burnt by the sun! th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
I just had to say that I appreciate that all the measurement in this video is metric. Thank you
Assuming X amount of solar energy hits a given area on Earth based on the geography. Is taking some of that energy and using it to create extreme heat in concentrated locations going to have a positive or negative impact on climate change? Will it create heat zones like a city does causing disruption in weather patterns? Or assuming some less than 100% efficiency, would less than the total energy drawn from the sun by converted and that energy loss help reduce local heating?
What are the non-electrical generation impacts to the environment?
All the energy from the sun that reaches the Earth is converted to heat eventually, whether or not some of it is interrupted by mirrors and towers or mirrors and tubes.
@@pauleohl Then explain why putting garden roofs on buildings reduces heat loads in cities. Same sun. Different surface.
A sand desert reflects and dissipates it's heat back into the sky at night. The stored energy of those systems does not.
@@glenncurry3041 They absolutely do have a local effect on the climate. I do not know what the long term impact will be, especially considering that Las Vegas has already changed the local climate all by its self. I can tell you that the traditional solar panel fields between Las Vegas and Searchlight attract dust devils like a trailer park attracts tornadoes.
I love how first I learnt of such a tower was via Fallout New Vegas :D
i saw the title and instantly said to my self on no not another Helios 1 time to get the c finder from some random kid for 20 caps so i can rain hellfire apon thine enemy
Wasn't this thechnology shown to be an epic failure? In theory it makes sense but in reality the plant never met the production goals of 50%, the best they ever got was around 20%. It turns out working with molten salt has its drawbacks. The plant only ran for about 9 months and could never produce enough revenue to meet basic maintenance cost so it had to be shutdown. Not trying to bash green technology but I am wondering if they even bothered piloted this technology before scaling up. Here is a link to the video th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
@D. Johnston 702 if you look at the dates... the plant failed in late'ish 2019 [how quick do you think info was published about this? Same second it failed? Or did it take time. This video was Aug 2021, and the video discussing the project failed Man Kev linked was Feb 2022. How much info was around in 2020 or 2021 during the peak of covid? How many people were touring plants then and discussing it, and talking with people involved in the project?? Prob none. As covid restrictions lifted more reports and tours of the project would be available.
I always look out for Ivanpah when I fly home to LA. Never thought about the stored energy capacity of CSP systems as an advantage over photovoltaics, that's pretty cool.
It’s not an advantage over PV because there are PV with energy storage as well. Typically they use batteries tho as storage. It’s just a technology to help alleviate the problem of reducing down time.
I really liked this deep dive series. Getting a really broad overview as well as some specific details was really entertaining, and I feel like I learned a lot!
I was thinking it was a very superficial and not a deep dive series, it showed some flawed engineering with dreams, some expensive ways of making or converting energy and missed out completely on something that covers 71 percent of the world.
@@maxnex7676 Yeah at 8:51 she says "the efficiency of it, the heat engine depends on the temperature of it and the hotter you can get the hot thing the more efficiency", who even talks like this? This was such a non-deep dive way of talking about the subject. First of all why is she assuming everyone will know what is the "heat engine" she is talking about here and then "the hot thing" being hotter in absolute terms doesn't matter much, it is the ratio ratio between the cold and the hot thing that matters, this video was as superficial as it could have been.
@@maxnex7676 There is no talk about the way the heat get transferred other then "in thousands of tubes ". and talking about saturated steam going into the turbine... really... really??.
First you never let saturated steam run into a turbine because you have a chance at condensation on your turbine rotors, eating away the material, you superheat it way above the saturation line.
Second if you run the HTF into the reboilers on sunrise, how do you not make the boiler burst from instant steam pressure inside the pipes, or just plain thermoshock because its 400 degrees celcius?
(I think i know this one, they heat it up first at night, you know, burning that good old natrual gas.)
third, does every tube inside the mirror expand halve a meter? i mean i hope you have wheels under those mirrors then.
It's a pretty video, nice pictures, but nothing of value is being told.
Fantastic series, Physics Girl! Thanks!
Nice video! I wonder how they keep those mirrors dust-free. Is that done by robots? Or do they have some technology to vibrate those mirrors, somewhat like the vibration technology in Olympus cameras to keep the sensor dust-free?
Nothing, and that is one of their main fails.
I'm feeling a little bit let down by this video especially in context with this whole video series. How are they storing the heat energy? Just using a big tank of that special oil? What are the limits of scalability? Or in the case of the sand like material? What devices or mechanisms are used to store and transport the 1000 degrees hot sand? really curious to know, cheers.
Also, no mention of the big problem with the mirror fields: focused light literally incinerates birds that happen to fly over. I was glad to learn of the fluid tubes variant because it solves the "giant death mirror" problem.
I am also having trouble interpreting the sand part of the video... How does that falling sand work exactly? It is missing the explanation.
I know that the molten salt CSP's that work with molten salts in the tower heat the salt. This salt only cools off slowly and thus will give off heat for a long time after the sunlight has stopped heating it up. I guess it is the same principle with salt etc. These parabolic mirror with oil running through them usually are not the ones with storage, rather the tower variants are.
here is a video that shows the basics: th-cam.com/video/ADbUsuNeRQE/w-d-xo.html
@@kocsirtamas The sand gets heated and used to create steam. Instead of using a heated fluid (HTF), the sand retains heat longer (after dark), so you can use to keep running.
@@jpena53 Ok, I get that, but *how* is it used to create heat? And where is it falling?
We've seen footage of a (previous?) Mohave dessert CSP plant now abandoned. Fields of broken mirrors devastation rubble. Similarly, fields of rusted abandoned wind generators.
Are we to cover CA with such primitive tech dreams gone wrong. And leave fields of just rust dust and broken glass behind? Please explain what's changed.
Mirrored solar actually has a lot of operational challenges long-term, in addition to the perennial solar-energy production vs. demand mismatch. There are some real maintenance headaches, and they kill a lot of birds. Ivanpah, in San Bernandino County, wipes out around 6,000 birds a year. Hydrogen production may help solve one small piece of that puzzle, but that is all.
6000 birds a year, so around 25 cats worth of birds. I'd say that is a worthwhile compromise.
@@sevret313 Responsible outdoor-cat owners rarely have bird kills since the cats have bell collars, and especially not many of the types of birds like raptors that are taken out by the focused heat radiation.
I worked at both plants. Ivanpah was definitely the coolest and I was there from start to finish as a pipefitter. The blow down and testing was crazy. The Mojave project was cool but it's not anything close to how ivanpah was. There is soo much more to these project than you were able to explain. Ivanpah has a gas heater to maintain the water at a reasonable temp so that the towere can start working as soon as there is light. It is also not steam being produced, it's super heated steam. It is 320 degrees when it goes through the venturi and every drop of water expands in volume by 1000 times, which produces the pressure needed to turn the turbine. It's really crazy when there is no need for heat exchangers. It does need a high content of salt in the water but then needs a filtration process after it re condenses. Message me back if you have any questions about the build. Like I said it was unique. Only the second one in the world at the time as far as working plants go. Also it was built by bectal company the Company that built the hoover dam.
First thing I have to say, I have mad respect for you. As to my reason for commenting, the problem with the plant outside of Las Vegas is that it is beyond expensive. Not including the operational cost, in order to see a pay off in 20 years, the cost per kilowatt has to be at least $1.30. If we compare that to photovoltaic being put on your roof, the 20 year payoff averages to about 8.5 cents per kilowatt at today's prices. Energy storage is the biggest issue in our goals towards renewables, and the sands idea does appear to be very interesting. Of course we have the future cost of what to do with the photovoltaic panels when they are no longer useful, which means that we need to work on a recycling technology as well. My fear with what we are seeing in green tech is not the tech as much as it is government being so eager to go green, that no one making the decisions is considering the steps to get there, and the challenges of waist in the future. Considering how many cars are on the road for instance, the idea that we can have 100% of drivers switch to electric cars, we would need to create enough power production to produce another 1,120 gigawatts per day. The worst part of that number is that it would mainly have to be produced during the night time. With all the new tech, it seems the best answer is nuclear. I am happy to see engineers figuring out new ideas, we just have to remember that cost has to be added to the equation. Cost and land.
you'd have said the same thing about offshore wind 20 years ago though and look how once the industry was established, and reached some scale the prices plummeted. nuclear is not cheap either
@@mralistair737 yes but the problem of the energy storage remains true. Here in Europe the countries invested hundreds of billions of euro in photovoltaic and offshore wind. Now that wind isn’t blowing blow, even sun is covered in some countries and natural gas price triple we have broken the price record for electricity. For a short period of time the UK has had the equivalent of 800€/MWh. Here in Italy 🇮🇹 we went from 50 €/MWh to over 150 €/MWh. (hope my comment is understandable)
awesome! that's so cool to hear that there is a solid option for storing solar energy during down times, fascinating to use temperature for that solution
Or just use nuclear.
Screw nuclear, we are trying to save our planet, not make it worse. An SCT or Newtonian telescope configuration of mirrors through a fresnel lens onto a ceramic target to heat the motive fluid, expanded through a Tesla turbine, we can generate the electricity a home needs plus store the heat in a brine tank to generate home heating or turbine steam at a home scale. Distributed system, selling excess into the grid, the perfect way to turn the scales on utilities. The beauty of a Tesla turbine is that it also operates as a compressor… as in for an AC system.
@@pseudotasuki More like use both in our transition
@@7sArts Yup, that'll work great in Buffalo in February.
@@7sArts "Screw nuclear, we are trying to save our planet, not make it worse."
So, bulldozing absolutely enormous swaths of land will make the planet... better?
This seems like the same thing they did for the Helios One in New Vegas.
There it is. It's been so long I couldn't remember the name. Definitely one of my favorite locations out of Fo3, New Vegas, or Fo4.
i was actually here for this exact comment
Possibly even the same place.
When I lived in Las Vegas and would sometimes take a road trip furthest West, I would drive by this exact solar power plant! I always marveled at it's sea of mirrors, and was super curious about it. Thanks for the education Physics Girl!
These are great...for wasting land, frying birds in mid air, messing with migratory birds flight paths...
Yes, this tech has been around for a while, but output vs land usage, mixed with stability and maintence, make this a relatively inefficient form of power generation.
But it's cheaper than solar cells. Into a price comes down on the solar cells.
@@dueymiller617 The price has come down on solar cells, they are now cheaper. Much cheaper, as in substantially cheaper per unit energy even when you factor in the lifetime cost of batteries for storage(roughly half the price if you have enough LiFePO4 batteries to back up power for 24 hours).
For electricity generation, I totally agree. Solar PV (+ battery storage) is clearly the better option.
But there's still one use case for solar thermal plants: Process heat; e.g. for the chemical industry, for hydrogen production (via the sulfur-iodine cycle), for the steel + cement industry, or for seawater desalination. Maybe that'll make sense if they manage to lower the costs (by automating the construction + maintenance of solar tower facilities).
Another great source of process heat is nuclear - with a special focus on high-temperature reactors and SMRs.
Regarding the other contra arguments (besides costs): As far as I know, those solar towers are only built in the desert. There you have plenty of space available.
Land usage is a point if it means the destruction of ecosystems. But the desert is just a huge area of sand (with only a minimum of vegetation + fauna). So it shouldn't matter if we build things on top of this sand.
Frying birds? In the desert, there aren't many birds. Maybe some few vultures, but that's it.
And consider that we would only use a small portion of the desert for solar (no matter if PV or CSP), maybe 5-10%. That means that still 90-95% of the desert area would stay untouched.
These mirrors and the heat they generate is the reason there's a drought.
The monsoon that used to come from Nevada and Arizona storm turn back and away from California.
The High Pressure as Weather Casters call it : keep the storms going up to Canada 🇨🇦 with the occasional drop to the Bay area. This is and I hope an unintentional Weather Modification
wonderful episode! 😎
Wonderful *series*
th-cam.com/video/aJOjw9Y1ISM/w-d-xo.html centuries-old mysteries of the Sun. You will love this
I recently drove from Los Angeles to Utah and was in absolute awe of this particular solar farm. I can’t tell you guys how amazing this facility looks.
Oh, yeah, it's cool when there are only a handful of them, out of the way. And the novelty of it is fresh. But do you really want tons and tons of acreage being gobbled up by these things? Looks like a huge waste of space to me, that probably is not helping the local environment.
Grotesque use of resources for little good purpose.
Those "cage-like-thingies" are aptly called ladder cages, and a desgined to catch a limp body falling through.
TIL! I always wondered what those were for. The limp body aspect never occurred to me.
Us simpletons called them back scratchers 😂
@@seeker1287 It also allows you to rest against them if you are climbing a high distance. Usually a long continuous run isn’t allowed, so they will have platforms at various levels, so if you fall, it might only be 20 ft as opposed to 100’s
This was a excellent series. I am keenly interested in renewable energy, especially in vehicles. I hope you do more on this field of study, thank you from Canada,
As an engineer in the utility scale solar industry, I'll highlight that heliostat systems like this were built when Photovoltaics were like 5x the price of today. CSP is not the future of renewables.
As an engineer in the utility industry who has also worked on PPAs with some of the facilities featured in the video, I can say that there have been several CSP plants built much more recently when PV prices were already pretty low (though they do keep getting cheaper). However, I agree with your conclusion; PV has already won the solar war. I'll have to look into this sand/particle tech but I doubt it will make a sizeable difference. The interesting thing is with storage. We are going to need so much of it that I don't think Li-ion is going to do the job. Possibly LiFePO4.
Came here to comment the same... PV won the holy war for the light, so some of projects like this are actually broke now.
@@fakljfklajf LiFeYPO4 is even better
There are a lot of things for us all to worry about nowadays, and it seems like Physics Girl is talking about the big, big ones on my mind that tend to fill me with dread and powerlessness. I like to think it isn't just being presented with work I didn't know was happening and the "helpers" as Mr. Rogers would put it, but also the fact that she perfectly nails the tone of hope and promise, without overstepping to the point of complacency. Physics Girl, not sure if that was something you worked hard on, but it was perfect and just what I needed right now to get back to solving my little corner of problems. Thank you.
Very interesting, cool to have a solid working fluid!
The best part is when you fly by these, they blind you from every direction (I know, first world pilot problems), AND all the free, already cooked birds it roasts. Pretty cool.
So, they're basically destroying local fauna? huh
Free Colonel Sanders? Cool!
Do you have a source on the affected wildlife claim?
@@greensteve9307 Look it up on TH-cam
"If they make more energy than they are contracted, they pay a fine"
So, if they make enough energy to need less of other forms of electricity production they get penalized?
Thats what I heard. Apparently we need to meet our C02 quota still
This is screwed up
That’s really the point of these episodes. If they could take their excess generated power(or heat) and use it at after the sun goes down or the wind slows down we would solve many of these problems
They get a fine because the grid has to supply exactly the right amount of electricity demanded (i.e. purchased in advance). |f you produce more, the electrical frequency increases. Ideally, we should find a way to store this extra energy in batteries
It isnot strange if you understand how big a problem too much energy is. Of the power plants produce much more power than is consumed the entire grid can break down.
It is a real art to balance the production with the consumption to prevent that from happening
Could you do a video which explains the relative power output of a few various types of energy plants? How many square metres of pv panels do you need to power the same area of CSP? How does this compare to coal power. One of my feelings about CSP is that its a very industrial process, which isn't as well suited to mixed agricultural solutions like wind (and potentially PV if done somewhat sparsely). Which is fine depending on the application of course.
Nuclear power is smaller produces more power all the time with less injury and wastes, nuclear fuel is 70,000,000 times as energy dense as diesel which is of course hundreds of times more energy dense than solar or wind.
I love this tech, but the tower fields are deadly for birds- the heat instantly incinerates them. I had heard they were working on that, I was hoping there would be something mentioned about it here, as to if they have found a solution.
Yeah, the power towers do fry birds, that's why I think the parabolic trough collectors are probably more friendly to wildlife. The birds don't tend to fly between the parabolic reflector and the absorber tube.
Nobody even mentioning the massive amounts of land you would have to clear.... further destroying the environment and ecosystem.
You should check out the Tonopah "basically failed" solar project. Oh, and you forgot to mention how many birds burst into flames when they pick the wrong flight path.
yes, because all of the sudden team coal and oil cares about birds
Billions of birds have died because of the use of oil and coal.
Get back to us when you acknowledge that little fact.
Helios One looking great in this video! Let's just make sure the C-Finder stays hidden 👀
nice
FNV fans here
@4:32 you were asking about the heat exchange I guess. The heat is transferred through tubes. They don’t mix with each other, but the heat transfer fluid flow through one long tube. The heat then gets transferred to the long tubes carrying water and converts it to steam.
One thing to understand about steam turbines are, they spin really fast. The revs are high. Steam comes in at high pressure, spins the turbine and then a condenser is used on the output to cool down the steam to water making the pressure low. This improves the efficiency of the turbine. Easy way of saying, high force on one side and low on the other side makes the turbine spin really well.
Absolutely loved this series! Would love to see more videos on sustainables and our future with them in different locations!
Check out MEER REFLECTION PROJECT
It may be our only hope!
Help share it too, because it will require massive global effort to work
Loved this series and loved learning about what the future of energy production and storage might one day look like!
photovoltaics still outperform mechanical turbine generation for cost per terawatt as the overhead is cheaper; there isn't critical machinery that needs to be in place. I'm a fan of alternative solutions tho
If photovoltaics outperform turbines, why would people still use anything with turbines (e.g. nuclear or fossil)? Maybe you mean CSP turbine power generation instead of turbines in general.
@@niklaskoskinen123 Solar’s cost advantage is new. It is already driving coal out of business.
@@paulogden7417 It's driving coal out of business for other reasons that came about in between 2008ish and 2016ish.
@@niklaskoskinen123 : building a steam cycle costs more than building a PV plant that generates an equal amount of electricity over the year. So if you're building a new plant, you'll just about never choose steam power, no matter what the heat source is.
The exception is if it's cheap enough that you can run it while the PV is not producing as much power (e.g. at night, or in winter) and power prices rise, so that leaves some room for natural gas combined-cycle plants.
And why would anyone still *use* existing plants is that they exist. With coal, even that's not cheap enough: it's more expensive to operate a coal-fired plant that someone gives you for free than to build a new wind or solar farm. But with other heat sources it remains cheaper to keep using them than to build new renewables.
Correct
YES!! Molten Salt is part of the solution; as in a molten salt reactor(MSR) using thorium and/or in a liquid fluoride(i.e. salt) thorium reactor(LFTR)
I notice immediately the passion I feel always too for this technique. You don't need rare materials from other countries. Further it seems robust and easy to repair and recycle. And finally the possibility to have molten salts or here special sand as storage medium. Of course you need open skies for this. I didn't like the first plant because it looked way too complex and "macho". That could be because of the huge power output they aim for. But intuitively it looks like this technique has a optimal balance between scale, efficiency,costs of running and maintenance and here they could be overshooting that optimum. Since the concentrated solar beams are less hot than with tower beams, it's possible a bird survives a short contact (but how??)
I don't understand the problems with Ivanpah. Michael Moore jumped on it sadly and I start to think "some people wanted problems already during the design" although I'am against conspiracy thinking;
Yeah, I'm just wondering why they aren't using a USB hard drive for their storage problem, that's how I solved my storage problem and its works great!
@@Reth_Hard Normally I am the one with the jokes.
I loved this. Thank you! 💗
I drive by these a lot, including the remote ones when going to the isolated desert peaks, so it was fun to get a more interactive presentation on this vs reading open file reports!
th-cam.com/video/sp2jFRr599s/w-d-xo.html
Are they still operating? the one outside Vegas was an EPIC fail recently due to costs th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
The kid that killed ants with a magnifying glass grew up to build these... I mean, it would be a perfect james bond killing device
Already was - The man with the golden gun
That would make for a fun origin story monologue.
Actually, it readily kills birds quite often
Also an interesting, surprising hazard in the book Ringworld.
What are the temperatures of areas like this? How much do these mirrors increase temperatures?
Turns the area into an oven and bakes the surrounding wild life alive.
Hot enough to cook the birds in midflight as they fly over head.... yay green energy
I'm so glad to see this alternatives to fossils, but just how a regiert or a well affects the ecosystem they're located in, I just keep wondering how this burning land expelled it's whole population of animals and vegetation that sometimes is much more delicate than in more hospitable places
screw the environment, we need to save the environment!
Solarthermal power plants can have benefits for plants and animals there. Under those mirrors, evaporation is reduced. That means plants have more water available to grow and more plants mean more food for animals. Deserts usually mean to much sun and too little water, so those mirrors remove the liminting factor for plant growth.
But of course, every human construction has disadvantages for the biosphere. And as long as there are humans who want stuff, we will have to deal with that. The question is how can we minimize the impact. Right now fossil fuel powered plants are the most destructive form of energy generation, not only because of emissions, but because of the mining, transporting and using, that affects land and water. Fossil fuels have to be mined where they are, regardless of how many species there are. Artificial structures in tropical rainforests do kill more plants and animals than those in a desert. Again, we can only minimize damage, and for that goal deserts are better suited than mining fossil fuels in areas with much more plants and animals. And then there is the emission aspect. Climate change kills or at least threatens a huge number of species. Plants and animals die out because they cannot adapt fast enough. All those factors have to be taken into account.
@@l-dogtheman1685 slight problem with your theory. Those mirrors are there to redirect the sunlight towards the central tower. No light no plant growth.
@@Lorkanthal that's what I thought, too, at first. But the truth is there is still enough sunlight for photosynthesis. The overall efficiency of photosynthesis is actually really low, only 0.8% by some estimate (compared to 22% for photovoltaic). So the plant doesn't use much light in the first place. And even in the shadow you still have light (diffuse light), especially in the desert. If you take off your sunglasses there, you are still blinded by the light, even though you are in the shadow. So sunlight is not the limiting factor, humans can easily use some of it and there is still enough left. But water is super rare in the desert, it is the resource that limits plant growth. Every single drop of water immediately evaporates in the sunlight, and without water any vegatation dies. In the shadow, water evaporates less quickly. This works with photovoltaic power plants as well, which is why they are considered for agriculture, too (agrivoltaics). But for deserts, solar towers are perfect because the hot climate is not a problem but an advantage.
I loved this one, as it addressed the area which no one else has been talking about. Storage solutions :)
There is some really cool development in high temperature liquid metal batteries. A professor from MIT is leading the field.
Storage solutions can also be costly to maintain, not economically viable th-cam.com/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/w-d-xo.html
What is amazing about renewable energy is that the department of energy made a short film in the 30s and all the technology listed in the film in the 30s is still what is being listed to day as new and ground breaking. humm
better materials
Do you mean the United States Department of Energy made a video 40 years before it came into existence? Impressive.
@@ps.2 I believe it was from the departmen that was responsible for the atomic bomb, but the point is what they talk about today is the same tech from a short film from the 30's that was shown in theaters. So which department does not matter as much as it was made by the united states government and if they made the same today they would show the same tech. The end of the video talk about the round wind mills they may be called wind veins as new tech and when they talk about the round wind mills or veins today they act like it is new tech
@@Inertia888 that's why the are searching the ocean floors for old rocket engines because people involved with creating space flight admit they can't build engines as good as what is playing on the ocean floor from 60s or 70s, even if better materials they still can't make anything better than before computers. all the new space companys have addmited to it. That why they want the original space tech and are searching the ocean floors for it
@@ps.2 yea if you look at DOE HISTORY they say DOE HAD PREDECESSOR AGENCIES, so any one that actually deals with tech knows they are on in the same just because things get reorganized and name changes does not mean a different agency or department, it's called lineage descended from so can be called the same, just as department of war and department of defense it's the same thing just different name. You must be a TH-cam genius, sorry you do not have the intellect to create something
The tower type plants use a mirror setup which concentrates enough solar flux to set errant birds on fire.
Free lunches for the power plant workers
Yeah, they explode, right? Gotta love Gohmert! Now if only someone will help him alter the moon’s orbit to fix climate change
@@jkangaroo If you like them exceptionally well-done, sure.
Errant birds don't go through the focal point given there's a (very visible) building there. When not collecting heat, the solution to avoid frying birds is not to shift the focal point of all the mirrors up the same distance, but have different points for each mirror.
@@benoithudson7235 th-cam.com/video/ICLXQN_lURk/w-d-xo.html
On this, I can’t. Too many birds are killed by flying into the mirror fields. They are literally burned in flight and die from the burns or the fall.
But this series of videos was great. Informative, relevant and well presented. Kudos.
They have video of birds being set on fire in flight.
I'm sure that's an easy solution. But the number of animals killed this way must surely be fewer than the number killed by, say, supertankers crisscrossing the ocean, roadtankers crisscrossing the country, oil spills, coal mining and transportation, etc etc.
@@jeffkeith637 so the many stripes out the few. Just like wind turbines. Killing thousands of birds and bats.
Because electricity to your computer is more important.
@@jeffkeith637 Oooookay, how does a supertanker or a road tanker kill birds? Runs over them? Coal mines!? Really? What, the canaries they (traditionally) use in the mine? Bwwaahaha.
@@assassinlexx1993 Damn skimpy. HALO is a basic human right.
I just discovered your channel and I'm hooked after only three videos! Your geeky enthusiasm is so infectious! You need to collaborate with DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse. Although his in-depth knowledge of consumer level solar power is amazing, it his infectious enthusiasm that keep us watching hours and hours of content! You two could change the entire world's view of consumer level solar technology!
More of this Dianna! I feel like we're just scraping the surface
We all wish there could be a really good general replacement for fossil fuels. Unfortunately, there are only replacements that work in certain environments, such as on rivers or in windy areas. A good general replacement would quickly be adopted on a large scale.
Any birds flying through that area with mirrors are cooked instantly. The parabolic collectors are not a problem with birds.
mmm.. mirror chicken... 🤤
And no airliners can go anywhere near this either!
@@jamesrobinson9176 it's on the ground so ideally no airliners will be anywhere near it. The heat dispersion follows an inverse square law so it falls off very quickly as you move away from the site.
@@abebuckingham8198 these mirrors literally create a solar death ray. And yes, pilots are required to avoid these airspaces, too great a risk of blinding the pilot and their instruments.
@@jamesrobinson9176 I won't contest that they're bright but it won't be hot at altitudes planes are flying if you can walk close enough to video it.
Wouldn't one of the main challenges be keeping all the mirrors clean? That's a lot of mirrors exposed to the elements
This is why we need undocumented immigrants
Robots for such a job are quite cheap
When I learned about Gemasolar in Spain many years ago, I knew that technology will spreed around the world. Amazing!!!
I prefer the idea of the light dam, as described in one of the Pratchett books. Using mirrors to store light from the daytime to be used at night. I guess it only works with slow light, it was heavier than the light we get today, so it pools easier. The photons we get today are always rushing around, which makes them light headed...
What?
Love your positive energy , keep sharing you're filling a lot of blank spaces in my overactive brain it's great :-)
all that space for just under 400MW power plant? you could build 50, 1 GW Thorium Molten Salt Reactors on that same amount of space.
From what I've heard conditions aren't always right for large scale solar electricity generation. If you set one up in the desert you have plenty of sunshine, but there is little water. I'm wondering if the synthetic oil and molten salt generators need less water and therefore are more efficient in desert environments.
Alternate title: "Real-life BoS scribe visits real-life HELIOS One."
"Patrolling the Mojave almost makes yo wish for a nuclear winter"
This place is in cyberpunk too
There has been a few documentaries made in the UK about this CSP plant you featured
It's a shame that you only got to see older tech for CSP but atleast it's getting out to the masses
9:42 Very small nitpick, not all renewables are intermittent. Water virtually isn't and Geothermal definitely isn't.
Hydroelectric powerplants are on their way out. Huge costs and time to get them producing, continous drought everywere means that they don't hold as much water as they used to, create big changes in the climate in their vicinity, not to mention destroying a valley and wildlife. And we haven't had to dismantle a big one so far, which adds to its costs. Definitely nuclear powerplants are less pollutant including the mining side of the business.