I was involved in a CSP project a few years back, and as much as I enjoyed the tech side of it I have to agree with you. Large scale CSP is probably cheaper than large scale PV, but after you factor in maintenance, fighting BANANAs ( Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything) and particularly grid connection and distribution costs CSP just can't compete with roof-top PV or small local PV installations supplemented by other power sources to deal with lack of sun at night.
Assuming no LENR there is no chance of CSP being competitive with natural gas in the next few decades. And it will not compete with nuclear in the long term either (China already does nuclear for about $0.03-04/kWh, the west will eventually get the price down as well on the back of China's learning curve). May as well let CSP die. On 14 June 2012 19:40, Chemical Engineer <cheme...@gmail.com> wrote: > Jed, > > Your problem is that you believe everything you read off those green > energy blogs/flyers and believe it is true. > > The original Solar One and Solar Two Power Towers were moth-balled 20 > years ago. Solar one used steam/water, Solar Two used molten salt. > > $1.6B/$2.2 Billion of government taxpayer money for 392 MW @ Ivanpah is a > horrendous amount of capital for that much generation, only part of the > day. $56M went to RELOCATE 150 TORTOISES! > > Hundreds of thousands of clunky, motor driven heliostats/mirrors in the > desert are going to be a maintenance headache as well as operational > nightmare washing mirrors. Wind deflection and airborne dust is also a > problem trying to point mirrors and hit a target 1/4 mile away. > > BrightSource was Luz2 the reincarnation of Luz1 that went bankrupt in the > late 80's when the government cut their funding back then. > > These guys spend more in Washington Lobbyists than R&D > > The only operating power tower is Gemasolar in Spain generating ~ 10 MW's > of electricity and cost @$200M, an absurd amount. > > Brightsource's working fluid is water/steam with a steam boiler sitting > 500' in the air. Ivanpah does not have thermal salt storage. Also, CSP > uses standard Rankine cycle so 65% of your heat collected goes back out the > air-cooled condenser. > > You can install a PV field in one tenth the time it takes to install a CSP > tower, foundation, turbine, power plant, etc. Alstom likes the CSP > technology because they still get to sell their power equipment. > > Also, placing these things in the middle of the desert, although the sun > is bright, creates a huge transmission cost/problem. Distributed PV is > alot more cost effective. > > Let's wait until these things are completed and running before spending > one more cent of taxpayer money. > > Other than that I agree with everything you are saying... > > > On Thu, Jun 14, 2012 at 1:41 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> This is a 110 MW concentrating solar power (CSP) project in Nevada, with >> a central tower, on 1,600 acres of land. The tower approach is more >> efficient and cheaper than the troughs that were common 20 years ago. They >> recently finished erecting the tower. See: >> >> http://www.tonopahsolar.com/pdfs/FactSheet_CrescentDunes.pdf >> >> >> http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2012/06/u-s-solar-industry-posts-solid-q1-with-506-mw-installed >> >> 1.1 GW of CSP plants are now under construction. I think the nameplate >> versus actual ratio is better than wind, so this represents roughly half of >> an average nuclear plant (which is 0.9 GW). >> >> Solar availability and peak power are much better than solar in the >> southwest because the peak coincides with the highest demand, mainly for >> airconditioning. Demand at night is always much lower anyway. CSP does not >> drop when there is temporary cloud cover. It will be able to store the >> energy, even for use at night. That is a big advantage of CSP over PV >> solar. The working fluid is molten salt at 1050 deg F = 566 deg C. >> >> - Jed >> >> >
