Growing food in the Australian desert with sunlight and seawater - the Sundrop Farms project
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 มี.ค. 2017
- There is an energy system in the Australian desert that uses sunlight and seawater to secure sustainable production of 17 million kg tomatoes a year. Find out more about this world first solar energy project: www.aalborgcsp.com/projects/i...
- วิทยาศาสตร์และเทคโนโลยี
This looks like an interesting project. Would be good to see a 15 to 20 min video on it that isn't just dumbed down PR. I'd love to see more of the engineering and construction of this project. Perhaps a tour by one of the site engineers would be good. Thanks.
Adding reply for traction
If you find something, let us know
You're right. We need to know the details of the technology and if it makes sense, not just a nice PR production. For example What kind of waste generated in the project? What happens to the salt? How much does the cost of a ton produced compared to conventional methods? And more.
This is an Advertisment,a Commercial if you will. Now go watch some Cigarette Commercials from the 50's & 60's to find out how healthy smoking is
@@sriharshacv7760 this video is just a barrage of catch phrases
We drove past this project at Port Augusta a couple of weeks ago and am glad to find out more about it. That tower was visible for quite some time before we got to see more of the ground array.
Ok Jimmy, it's mirror cleaning day today.
The Japanese made robots that automatically clean them, so it's no problem. Essentially they use soft brushes to clean a solar panel or a mirror, and then the robot moves onto the next one. It only needs a person to place the robot onto an entirely different row, meaning the robot does the entire row by itself. So long as you have your things aligned in rows and some kind of track where the robot can move along the row, then it's all very easy, you don't need to use people to physically clean them.
The mirrors in this video are in rows, so they are compatible with a robot cleaner.
BTW the technology is amazing, humans have failed to properly harness the amazing power of the sun for a long time, but that is changing in the last few decades. The sun emits so much energy that we can easily run our entire societies off the sun in fact, it's basically free energy as it just flows onto us every day.
Of course oil companies have pushed propaganda trying to bash on using the sun's power, because it hurts their business if people go in that direction. Usually low IQ republicans are easily propagandised and they are against any new technology and they insist on using coal and insisting that using the sun in stupid, of course republicans just repeat what the oil corporation propaganda pushes into republican media.
Most republicans will claim something dumb, like saying it costs most to produce a mirror or solar panel, than the entirety of energy you can harness while using it. Of course this is dumb and incorrect, but republicans don't have an education and don't know how stupid they are, so they just keep saying stupid stuff like that.
A night shift job hey . . . and watch out for hail storms
Wax on. Wax off, Mr. Miyagi!
I think the tomatoes are more like a fun/edible by-product. If this setup creates more solar energy and drinking water than it uses, you got something really good.
Does it create solar energy though? From what I can see 'solar energy' is the use of mirrors to direct sun rays to one focal point thereby creating enough heat to create steam from the seawater. The creation of steam separates the seawater into H2O & NaCl. The only solar energy created seems to be heat. At no time did they mention solar energy being converted to electrical energy nor showed any solar panels. The plant seemed to be mirrors, towers, pipes and boilers only.
@@jimmyrecar2052 Guess you missed the "turbine" part.
@@jimmyrecar2052 Watch the min 2:00 they quickly mention that. But again, they don't explain details of cost per kW or per ton of tomatoes or other critical details.
Coles, the retailer behind the tomatoes is for real, No1 in the supermarket wars in Oz.
@@celibate0 initial construction cost abd maintenance, ocean water is free and sunlight is free. do the math, your beeing fooled by power companies and resource companies......hey fear for their power
Thank you for sharing!
Finally there is a real plant that shows this technology on an industrial scale.
awesomely awesome! I wish more projects like this were out there. But, I have hope
They finally explain (very briefly) how it works at 2:00. You're welcome.
I've been suggesting this type of solar power/desalinization setup for over 20 years; my professors and older brother (who prides himself on being an engineer) kept explaining why it wouldn't work, would cost too much money, how the mirrors would get dusty and stop working properly, and how it would collect too little energy, etc., etc. They were all wrong.
The next time someone tells you that something won't work, put it to the test and find out.
Wow, that looks so good.
I really love this green energy system !
There is nothing green about it.
Solar panels are made from coal, and don't live long.
And water desalination is ve~ry power hungry (and not specifically environment friendly)
Ask your local solar panel retailer. He will tell you that the panels reach 50 to 80% of their rated power for 6 to 7 hours only per day on a sunny day!
Nice work, nice ideas. I like it
fantastic solution for our dear earth and for sustainable energy growth
i think this idea is brilliant
We need more and more of these
Definitely not. Solar panels are not "green". They are basically made from coal, and have a limited half-life of about 10 years only.
And seawater desalination is a very power hungry process, so it needs lo~ts of solar panels. To give you an idea, you need roughly 16 panels to power 1 single AC Unit during the 6 to 7 hours of the day with the highest sunshine!
The better alternative is to invest in poor areas of the world where the weather is appropriate, and then import the food. Much cheaper, and less impact on the environment.
Solar power is not a green alternative, but an option where conventional power is not available at all.
@@sassuki not to mention the fact that it needs to be plugged into main energy grid to draw energy each day using fossil fuels
The future lies in projects like this.
No birds in that future
I can smell all the rats and and snake shit in that future without birds already
No it doesn't. Very poor form of energy conversion, and doesn't regenerate the land. The future will be smaller farms that focus on soil regeneration, as well as a combination of vertical farms in the city that use minimum water, very small amounts of power, and has less logistical issues due to proximity to the local food markets. This sorta thing they have built is a scam system - folks got paid for a system that - I'd guarantee within 15 years is closed down or working at 1/3 capacity!
Great job , best regards.
Just listening to this on BBC radio. Made by a English inventor. He has adapted this for poorer countries and is running/setting these up in Somalia so self sufficient food can be grown. Awesome stuff.
There is a much lower tech but more interesting project where they use the sea water in what is basically swamp coolers to make greenhouses that lower the air temp and make the air more humid. This way you then only need a small percentage of the water normally needed to grow the plants.
Somalia? And end up with warlords taking over, like the 1990-92 conflicts? No thanks. US soldiers died in that war and with this, it will be worse when warlords take over.
Amazing- Very good for Australia and for future generation-Thanks
Have a go, a good go...
Exciting, Nicko from NZ.
The future of agriculture. Sundrop have thrived since this vid, and traditional ag is struggling with the risks and variability of global warming. I just hope the brine issue is well sorted.
You might want to educate yourself on how this works, in the us these types of solar farms have been laid to waste and also they rely on powering up from main energy grid each day using fossil fuels.
@@vwbusguy Poor uneducated me...I've been there. They do not use fossil fuels to start each day! It seems they have not been "laid to waste" after growing their market for the last 5 years either.
US solar farm economics bear little resemblance to desert coast farms! OK, they both use mirrors and heat from the sun, but power gen has been undercut by PV...not an issue for these guys. Even miners are switching from diesel to solar and converting Landcruisers to EVs for the benefits. Fossil fuels are dying, and not before time.
@@OzAndyify k
That was really interesting... Thumbs up.
The difference between what you see here in Australia and all the other video's on these sort of subjects around the world is that what you see here is a reality , the others are in all probability just a nice video of some small operation that never gets beyond the experimental stage because of third world corruption and lack of investment because of third word government corruption , what has been learnt here woks and is supplying the Australian market .
Australia has it's own corruption. Right wing radio still doesn't believe climate change is a thing... it's pretty sad
@@torqingheads I bet you are personally not superior to a sloppy turd, lol.
@@stevesavage4247 Right wing? All I hear is these gender debate stuff that people dont care about. Its not right wing its just loony.
@@tsarnicolasii1228 I don't know what you're listening to?
I see better videos showcasing a similar operation in Netherlands... :/
We might as well add a saltwater canal in the western USA to feed saltwater to projects as far east as far east as Utah. Keep it all at sea level and at least 100 feet deep and 100 feet wide. It could be completed in sections over time and the people getting water from it could pay for the water so the canal could be maintained and expanded.
If this is economically viable, I could see this restoring the aquifer here in Florida and possibly ending the sink hole problem we have had here for so many years. 😀
Hey! Really appreciative move
EPC projects that have used
They need a more radical approach such as composting as a source of water, nutrients and heat. Then another revolutionary idea such as thermal mass.
Super excellent innovation reflection light property
This should be brought to the whole meadle east
Search for beban solar farm
Looks great, but where do they leave the salt that is being seperated from the water??
Hopefully they sell it as a chemical.
@@rogerbarton497
In dubai they use desalination equipment and dump the salt back into the sea and that's not good, so that's why i wonder what they do with the salt
in this project.
@@3DPeter ...why isn’t dumping the salt that came from the sea back into the sea?
@3DPeter
If you think about it, all the water ends up going back into the sea, eventually, so putting all the salt back is simply restoring the balance.
@@q.e.d.9112
It's not that easy as you say, because water evaporates from the sun and falls down like rain, but it's only water that evaporates, so the salt
stays equaly spread in the sea, but here the salt is extracted from seawater and pumped back in high concentrations at one spot and that's not good.
It's like filling a swimming pool with water and then add a barrel of chlorine in one corner. it sure will mix over time but not the first few days when the pool is not used,
so the corner where the chlorine is added, is not where you want to jump in because that will cause severe burnmarks, so it's all about the concentration
at one spot that's bad for the marine life.
So you sell the electricity to the grid, how much is lost in transmission? Or is it all used in the greenhouses, seems like a very costly way of making tomatoes.
Amazing tech!
Fantastic 😃👌👌👌👏👏👏👏
So the price of one unsubsidized tomato is the same as a Porsche 2022 GT3 loaded.
Magnificent.
The synergies between solar energy, water purification, and agricultural production are interesting. I'm wondering what the excess electrical energy that is generated is used for. Is it sold to an existing utility?
It uses fossil fuel derived energy to start up each day and it is also on main power grid for that reason
What happens to the excess brine ??
No top vents. How do you cool that greenhouse during the day?
Some vents are visible in the video. They probably open up when it's necessary.
Nice AD. But tell me, what do you do with the brine? The extremly salty wastewater? Brine is always there when you turn seawater into freshwater
Given that port Augusta has the enormous salt lakes near it, there are plenty of safe places to put it. They could even dump it into some of the old open cut mines up there. I’d like to see more details than just the PR since I live not so far away.
@@santacaribhikkhuni5743 Since this is an AD and there is pretty much always a catch im sceptical. This could be way too expensive to bring it to wider use. How will the fertilizer effect the surroundings? Im sure there is more information to find, also from outside sources, not only their own ADs
@@santacaribhikkhuni5743 100%. I agree with your concerns.
We need REAL information, not just a nice PR clip.
i assume that's DWC hydroponic growing? would be nice to see more details
Sounds good on the surface but what happens to the brine waste from the desalination
Causes problems when discharged back to the ocean
I suppose they are using sunlight to evaporate the water, then condensing the water to utilize in farm production.
Seawater can reach central Australia with a North-South Canal from Darwin to Adelaide. Then, not just railways but also ships could go from North to South Australia. Alice Springs could become a Summer resort with abundant seawater...New vegetables are being developed in Saudi Arabia to live with seawater, even without desalination, but desalination will be necessary for human consumption.
@@soulsphere9242 yes, it should be a private-public project. 200 TBM boring machines would be used for the canal at the same time, many new towns will be created. th-cam.com/video/qlrZ3G0tAzY/w-d-xo.html
@@soulsphere9242 Yes, very expensive for unknown returns
@@trokoro who ever builds it.....just keep china out of it on all levels.
@@soulsphere9242 need to divert the monsoonal water from the northern half of australia to the desert areas. create more farming areas, and jobs. how many mines are lying dorment throughout central Australia? can they be utilised as water reseviors? does this make sence to anyone else?
@@Neveragainnnn look. A green racist.
Just gonna vent this steam across the mirrors....Bet someone got a promotion for that amazing move.
Similar projects going right now in sub-Saharan Africa.
Very trend setting. I hope more countries try to benefit from this knowhow and innovative technology.
I think my country India can greatly benefit from this.
Careful. You need more detailed info before you copy it, or even like it. Sounds like roses without thornes.
@@celibate0
Thks , point well taken. In the video clip they showed red,luscious tomatoes being allegedly grown in desert with sea water. There are such arid coastal areas in India. This is why the thought, it could benefit us.
However ,I feel caution needs to be exercised.
How much salt is generated and what do you do with it?
O realizare remarcabila; dar oare ce gust or avea ???
Is the salt sold as well?
How many salt brine is produced by the desaltition and why is no saltgarden is made to use brine to win sea salt?
A three minute advert for a German company , with about twenty seconds about food in the desert .
I'm sorry you didnt look at googlemaps before saying that we are German!! Aalborg is in Denmark!
@@nielsbgeskov-jensen8306 Sorry , three minute advert for a Danish company .
Thanks so good. These will bring peace... oil is war.
I wish but we’ve been fighting way before oil
They could also capture the steam and have fresh water to offset usage for the tomatoes. Or is that already part of the plan?
Yes
You have to separate green house gases??????
Fantastic stuff... these people are national heroes, good on them.
What is the lifecycle of solar?
where are they getting the salt water from? cause the outback dosnt have any. oh! they are getting salt water from the spencer gulf, which means this project is not really in the outback. Good idea though, we would just have to pump sea water into the middle of the artesian basin or to many plants in the outback. I think this idea has potential.
You can grow tomatoes in salt water so they are missing a trick. Salt Water Aquaponics too. This is an AMAZING project though!!!!!
Why desalinate the water? At the university of Ghent (Belgium) years ago they developed a growing technique for tomato’s with salted water in order to get a better taste and structure, so if you prepare the right dilution you could grow already. This strategy would make it possible to grow tomato’s inland in Australia: use the ‘sweet water’ below the salt layer in the soil and prepare the right dilution grade with this salt actually present in the inland soil... worth a try don’t you think so ? Greetings and all the best with the project already running...
I have had the tomatoes they taste like all artificial tasteless watery hot house crap. When are they gonna come up with tomatoes that taste like they should, sweet and flavourful.
It's the hybrid plants they use that are the problem not the greenhouses
i think you has a typo on the amount. 17 millons kg / 365 days = 46.575 kg or 46.6 tons per day. Working 24 hs, 1.940 kg x hour. Wich area cover the plantation?
Good questioning. I'm wondering why they haven't responded to your observations yet.
What happens to the brine?
So any desert near the sea,
Also..what is the total MWs in "e" and "t"??? (e is total megawatts in power; t is total net MWs)
It's just a nice PR clip. No details or critical info.
What about the brine (highly concentrated saltwater) that is created by the process. If it goes back into the ocean, it is a major pollutant and is just shifting the problem
if they made the photovoltaics higher they could have grown tomatoes underneath
Where do you discharge your brine and whats your readings on salt concentration over years ?
Salt is used in the chemical industry
From what I see, this is not a filter based water purification where you end up with brine. It is an evaporation based, just like how we get our table salt. I mean one of the way of getting salt, an evaporation pond. Instead of letting the vapour disappear to the air, they collect them thru condensation and use those as freshwater for the tomato. The leftover are most probably the same thing as what you get from a salt evaporation pond which is salt. Though, I must stress it would also have the same concerns/con for salt from a salt evaporation pond since those seawater are also the same pure seawater that have been said to be full of heavy metal and microplastics. Having said that, salt from mining do contains microplastics as well. My point is that they might end up as our table salt. That's just my two cents.
From what I know this is also not a solar panel plant, it is a solar thermal plant. It mean they don't use solar energy and change it into electricity directly with a solar panel. Instead, they use the heat. I have read that you could use medium like sand to keep all those thermal energy a.k.a heat. Sodium nitrate which is a type of salt could be used as the medium as well. Then, you could use those heat to boil water and create steam that propelled a generator.
What do you do with the brine?
salt used in the chemical industry...just down the road north of Adelaide are the Dry Creek Salt Crystallisation Pans
They *never mention* where the salt from the sea water goes. What is done with the salt extracted from the sea water? What is done with the extremely saline waste water?
What happens to the salt?
i am working in a similar prototype, how could i get contact with you?
Wonder what the price of a solar grown tomato is compared to the regular solar powered tomatoes? Minus subsidies?
Where does all the excess go to?
Into the pockets of the billionaires behind the propaganda 😉
what happens to the brine
what about brine?
Mix in trees that bear fruit, over time as soils get enrich you can drill wells to hydrate the soils to slowly improve the ground water.
Scott Foster go look up soil c quest what there doing is very interesting.
They should put a aquaponik farm to this, so they can grow up fish and feet the tomatos with the poop from the fish. So they don' t neet to buy fertelizer. Mfg Dirk
This is an Advertisment,a Commercial if you will. Now go watch some Cigarette Commercials from the 50's & 60's to find out how healthy smoking is
Link is now: www.aalborgcsp.com/projects/366mwth-integrated-energy-system-based-on-csp-australia/
Why do you need a Greenhouse in the desert?
As usual it sounds like the perfect solution, but and its a big but what do you do with the saline solution that is the waste product. I know you pump it back into the sea, that then sinks to the bottom of the ocean because its denser than sea water killing all marine life and the sea bed. Right let's hear what plan B is ?
It’s dispersed into the water, and the amount is insignificant compared to the water in the ocean. Learn some facts before you make stupid comments.
Interesting.
What type of tomatoes is involved? GMO or standard tomatoes?
Yagya Dollie i bet it's GMO
premium truss
GMOs are standard
Who cares? Plant breeders used their knowledge of genes to produce crops to suit environmental and marketing requirement. GMO technology does exactly the same thing but is more speedy and flexible.
2:27 correct# energy that produce by the Sun in a single second is not produce by human in their all history..... Sun is Sun ❤🙏 Sun Soil real king of lives #respect
Please come to South Africa so there will be no loadshedding for people who dont no what loadshedding is the cut the electricity for 2 and a half hours randomly.💫
What happens to the salt water leftover ? (Brine)
Shhh ... we don't talk about that.
@@bustermorley8318
Hahaha , the brine magically disappears just like the 16,000,000 cubic meters of solar photovoltaic wafers do,
“Unseen , so clean”!!!
you do know they use salt as a major part of the chemical industry?
th-cam.com/play/PLAlHXY4d-5P8zYJhadbRbeGECZRKW-6gM.html
Here's it's safe
Tsbussinessone.blogspot.com
Aalborg is Danish.
The double a is pronounced as the a in the English word 'all'.
Turn all deserts green.
All well and good but .. what happens to the hyper salty brine?. Releasing back into the ocean is very bad for the environment and fish species. When they can solve this issue then its a winner!
This is why Coles customers in Australia pay $8.90/kg for tomatoes, while South Australia has power blackouts.
but it doesn't have black outs
This is the type of industry governments need to invest for the next 100 yrs. We need to make these sciences MASSIVE along the coast lines and start exploring true desalination experiences and big scale endeavours before it's too late. The biggest eternal resource of this planet is it's oceans and water. It's self-recycling. Unless we start exporting it to other planets or space. Which will be a problem in the future as well, people didn't think about that. Living on Mars is real cute but if there's no water we gotta bring ours. I'm pretty sure the future of this planet is to be bone dry at some point. Im also pretty sure these official UFO's we been seeing are diving in our oceans for a reason too.
Water is what’s needed for Agricultural systems. Also only 15% of tomatoes national?
only?
Yes but do the tomatoes taste any good?
I love the sustainability factors here,
BUT,
Many mass produced tomatoes are very sadly lacking in flavour & juiciness.
Can anyone tell me?
The truss tomatoes in Australia are very tasty and better then field tomatoes.
@@BluegroperAuWeb
I'd like to try them. How might I find them in the shops?
Do the tomatoes have a special identifying label?
オーストラリアの大地に樹木を植える事を忘れてはいけません‼️
One question.....how many hundreds/thousands of birds are incinerated in the environmental safe program?
Crawl back under your rock you Luddite - the answer is none!
But you still need fresh water to water the plants right? You can't use the salt water.
The heat boils the seawater, then distils pure water by cooling it. The excess salt is returned to the ocean nearby.
@@aldunlop4622 Ah I see. Thanks for the explaining.
Its perfect for Egypt future next 160 million people in 2050 we have alot of sun + costs 3700km+
The question is can you supersize this to support 1 million people?
What about 3 million?
Just only from the power food and the other byproducts that this plant can use to support the people.
Come to Morocco.
The DIRTY LITTLE SECRET about GREEN POWER it is mostly supported by natural gas (at least the power plants in in the USA) to keep the boilers that support the turbines at a constant temperature.
Didn't know that you need to heat a greenhouse in the dessert...
Summer is here again but the waves of Covid-19 has caused so many economic crisis and unemployment. However, multiple streams of income can secure financial sustainability and freedom
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there is salt battery tech ;)