MJLorton Solar Power and Electronic Measurement Equipment Forum

General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: birrbert on February 15, 2014, 04:25:02 AM

Title: The World's Largest Solar Plant Started Creating Electricity Today
Post by: birrbert on February 15, 2014, 04:25:02 AM

Take 300,000 computer-controlled mirrors, each 7 feet high and 10 feet wide. Control them with computers to focus the Sun's light to the top of 459-foot towers, where water is turned into steam to power turbines. Bingo: you have the world's biggest solar power plant, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System.

Long-mired by regulatory issues and legal tangles, the enormous solar plant–jointly owned by NRG Energy, BrightSource Energy and Google–opened for business today.

Full article with photos: http://gizmodo.com/the-worlds-largest-solar-plant-started-creating-electr-1521998493


...and apparently it's killing birds.

The $2.2 Billion Bird-Scorching Solar Project
Link: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304703804579379230641329484

Title: Re: The World's Largest Solar Plant Started Creating Electricity Today
Post by: SeanB on February 15, 2014, 08:36:38 AM

Good, at least there is some use for otherwise arid ground. As a source of high temperature you could also use it as a first stage for waste incineration and power generation at the same time. If it gets high enough to handle dioxin you can use an outer layer as a destruction layer for waste, generating both power and destroying as well. You could even use a small secondary mirror to have a furnace at ground level to incinerate or calcine low level waste, or to run a desalination system for ultra brackish ground water to feed the facility.