Jed, Absolutely, flat mirrors have been used for thousands of years and full length flat mirrors have been used for 400 years. Mirrors are already mass produced, just go to any Home Depot. Google spent money two years ago reseaching heliostats/solar thermal and dropped it. They have not made any new investments since in solar thermal.
If you look closely at heliostat technology you will see it is a flat mirror, two stepper motors, a linear actuator, worm gear and a steel post. All those items are already mass produced. You can download the solar tracking software for free from NREL. i have built one myself. The big secret to the technology is THERE IS NO SECRET. They are clunky, subject to high wind shear & storm damage and hard to aim at longer distances. They also need expensive boilers and turbines which have been around for 100 years and miles and miles of underground control cable. Also, think of a utility scale boiler ramping up/down 500 times a year due to solar cycles. it is kinda like running the space shuttle through daily reentries... I am an engineer and unfortunately I have to think of these things. For now, just place cheap distributed PV on rooftops until something better comes along. Liquid metal battery electrical storage is on its way to even out the cycles.. I will glady trade you 350,000 heliostats for a (working) 1 kW LENR reactor (with recipe) and i will put you out of business in just a few years. Half of our government billions are going into the fat cats pockets. They are spending more on Washington Lobbyists than R&D. Oh well, maybe your herd of star wars desert mirror washing roombas from irobot from can save the day. On Friday, June 1, 2012, Jed Rothwell wrote: > Chemical Engineer <cheme...@gmail.com> wrote: > > >> Wind turbines were around for 1000 years but until the 1990s their costs >>> were much too high. It is not the length of time that counts; it is the >>> total R&D and scale of manufacturing. >>> >> >> It is not just the scale of manufacturing, not every product or system >> can be made economical by just scaling >> > > This one surely can! What is it about mirrors that makes you think they > cannot be made cheaper with mass production!? > > Seriously, do you have any reason at all to think that this particular > technology is not likely to get cheaper with mass production? It seems like > the ideal candidate to me. The materials are abundant and inherently cheap. > The structures are simple, modular and repetitive. > > Granted, there are products not amenable to reduced costs with mass > production. Anything made from rare materials, such as gold or palladium, > will likely grow more expensive when production is increased by a factor of > a thousand. But mirrors are the perfect candidate for robotic mass > production, installation and maintenance. > > - Jed > >
