ChemE Stewart <[email protected]> wrote:
> Wrong, Ivanpah uses steam drum boiler technology and steam turbine > technology and Home Depot flat mirror technology that have been around for > 100 years. > I believe the mirrors are more high tech than the ones at Home Depot, but if they were 100-year-old technology that would be an advantage, not a problem. Simple, cheap, proven old technology is good. However, as you see in the ASME document I referenced below, these are not ordinary mirrors. Wind turbine technology has been around since 1000 BC, with windmills. There were experimental giant 3-blade wind turbines in the 1940s. Even though wind energy has been around for centuries, tremendous improvements in wind energy have been made since the 1970s. There is no technology that cannot be improved and updated to the latest techniques. Combustion engineering (fire) has been used for 4.3 million years, and yet we are still improving it. I read that the production of wine and the quality of wine has improved more in the last 50 years than in all the thousands of years previously. Nothing to mature except maybe some of your robots to wash mirrors. Where > are they? > Any technology can "mature" more than it is now. Here is an ASME publication describing some recent advances in CSP technology. This is sophisticated, 21st century engineering: https://www.asme.org/getmedia/44edaee0-d607-4ec4-b241-1b7877bdbd01/Catching-the-Sun.aspx I believe they are using HECTOR robots to wash the mirrors: http://social.csptoday.com/technology/hector-meet-future-solar-field-mirror-washing The mirrors are mostly self-cleaning, because they are made with a high-tech coating that keeps water and dust from sticking. Quoting the ASME document: "By using transparent superhydrophobic coatings on collector mirrors, we’ll be able to create high-performance and low-maintenance concentrating solar power electricity generation . . ." The reflector coatings are expected to provide as much as a 90 percent reduction in mirror cleaning and maintenance costs, and provide about a 20 percent improvement in the average amount of reflected solar energy. There are any number of improvements that could be made. If history had been different, and someone had made this coating in 1980 instead of improving wind turbine blade technology, we might have giant CSP plants, and everyone would be saying how high-tech and 21st century they appear. If you look up Ivanpah you will find the WSJ and many others attacking it because it failed. This is unfair. CSP did not fail so much as PV and wind *succeeded* better than anticipated. People who have never made a new product or risked money in R&D are always quick to criticize those who try yet lose the competition. If history had been a little different, the WSJ would be excoriating wind turbines and PV, saying "people should be using tried-and-true CSP generators instead of wasting money on unproven, speculative technology." - Jed
