We talked a while back about the planned solar power tower in Australia. Well, a functioning experimental solar power tower has been generating the juice in Spain for quite some time. The project plant is really pretty exciting, and though there's still the whole "ugly giant pipe on the horizon" problem, I very much like the idea, and could see it generating cost-effective energy sooner than most alternative technologies.
This video gives a great explanation of the system and actually takes you into a functioning cost-competitive solar power tower. Very cool.
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This video gives a great explanation of the system and actually takes you into a functioning cost-competitive solar power tower. Very cool.
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written by ljkhjkk, December 17, 2006
Why not have many fans and generators all the way up the stack instead of just one at the bottom?
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written by monotonehell, December 17, 2006
Not completely sure, but my "physics gut" tells me that you can't get the same amount of air to do "more" work. There'd be a point where x turbines would stall the air rising to a point that they wouldn't turn.
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written by Jinks, December 18, 2006
Multiple turbines up the chimney would have a greatly diminishing return since every time a hot air molecule hits the turbine blade it loses some of its speed & heat energy and would have less energy to transmit to subsequent turbine fan blades.
I was wondering, tho, how a taller chimeny increases efficiency of the turbine, which they claim it does in that video. Cuz the minute I saw that turbine at the base of the chimney I thought, whats the point of such a tall chimney?
I was wondering, tho, how a taller chimeny increases efficiency of the turbine, which they claim it does in that video. Cuz the minute I saw that turbine at the base of the chimney I thought, whats the point of such a tall chimney?
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written by Hank, December 18, 2006
I'm taking their word for it. Multiple turbines, I know, would end up decreasing the energy produced by the tower. Though I'm at a loss to explain why.
As for the height and width increasing efficiency, I have no idea...but I believe them.
As for the height and width increasing efficiency, I have no idea...but I believe them.
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written by Western Infidels, December 19, 2006
I was wondering, tho, how a taller chimney increases efficiency of the turbine
Air is pushed up and out a chimney because the pile of hot air inside it is less dense than the cool air at the bottom of the chimney, which pushes the hot air up.
A larger pile of of hot, low-density air in the chimney will move more air than a smaller one, and in particular, a very tall pile of hot air tends to cause air to move through a chimney relatively fast, which is what you want for use with a turbine. Check out the Wikipedia article on chimneys.
I expect that it's possible to design a single turbine to extract all the useful energy from the chimney, and doing so, and putting it at the bottom, is simply cheaper and simpler than using a stack of turbines.
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