Stored Solar Energy: Elon Musk style

So, Elon Musk held a news conference last night and announced that he has a new division of his Tesla Motors company called Tesla Energy. This division will produce a new wall-mounted lithium-ion electric battery, powered by solar panels for the home and small business market. He is calling the system The Tesla Powerwall. He also talked about a larger version for utility scale use called the Tesla Powerpack. I certainly applaud his innovation and his efforts to try and reduce or eliminate the CO2 produced from power plants, but there is a part of the plan that concerns me.

 My concern is with the use of Lithium-Ion batteries. Lithium is already a hot commodity with the high demand for all of the rechargeable batteries in our electronic devices. Another issue is the production of Lithium produces toxic waste materials that must be dealt with. While it certainly looks good on paper, I wonder if having people unplug from the electric utilities will put our infrastructure in jeopardy. Less people requiring less energy from the electric companies means less money available to maintain the existing infrastructure.

 I have always been a proponent of utility scale solar chimney power plants. Sure, they aren't revolutionary, nor are they a product that can be sold to consumers individually, but producing electricity with almost no environmental impact surely seems the best option for utilizing the vast amount of solar radiation that reaches the earth on a daily basis. The operation of the plants produces no waste products as they operate on simple thermodynamics. They can be scaled and adapted to run 24 hours a day.

The biggest hurdles are the cost of the initial construction and the large footprint they require to be effective. I personally believe these are not true hurdles, but mere bumps in the road towards energy sustainability.

Analysis of Solar Chimney Power plants

Previously I wrote a short post about how much I like the idea of Solar Chimney Power Plants here. Since then I have been scouring the interweb looking for news, articles and studies regarding these types of plants and I have to say I'm disheartened at the lack of material available.  There have been a couple of papers written (the newest I found was 2012) and there had been news of a plant that was being built in Arizona and another in Australia, but neither of these appear to be progressing.

A recent article on the National Geographic site talks about a possible alternative to a rigid concrete tower that record holding balloonist Per Lindstrand has proposed where the tower is built of fabric at a significant savings. This would be exceptional if it can be done.

According to published reports a Solar Updraft power plant in the 200 MW (megawatt) range would have a tower approximately 1 km tall (1000 M or 3280 feet) and a collector surface area approximately 7000M in diameter.  That is a huge area to place under a roof. (approximately 9500 acres)

The 2 biggest challenges are obtaining that amount of land and building the tower that tall.  Neither of these is insurmountable but both are expensive!  The idea of the plant is that it would be built ion land unsuitable for other purposes, which is in its favor.  Deserts are the best places for this type of plant.  The fact that it doesn't use any water in the production of electricity is also ideal for the desert environment.

There is currently a pilot plant operating in China.  It is privately owned and funded, but seems to be having its own challenges.  According to the article, it has issues with glass in the collector breaking from the heat and the tower is too short to be efficient.  Despite these issues, the plant is in operation and generating electricity.

I really do think these plants make a lot of sense as they are environmentally friendly, consuming no resources during operation nor producing and waste products including CO2.  There is also no need of many rare elements nor a sophisticated production facility needed to produce components.  There is also no need to deal with excessive heat nor cooling.

One other idea is the tower itself could become an attraction with the addition of an elevator and an observation deck on the top.  this would provide an additional revenue stream for the plant.

This is a technology and a method of producing electricity that must be utilized!

Solar Chimney Power Plant

The idea of producing electricity from sunlight isn't new.  Typically most people think about photo-voltaic cells when thinking about solar power, but I like this idea much better: a solar updraft chimney power plant.  Less rare elements, simple, proven technology just applied in a new configuration.

The concept is that you create a greenhouse area under glass that contains air that is heated by the sun.  Heated air likes to rise, so with a sloped roof and a tall chimney, the air is directed into central turbines that the flowing air turn to create electricity.  Very few moving parts.  Very low operating costs.  No fuel costs.

The biggest problems with this type of a power plant are the initial costs to build it, needing a large area of land to house it and finding the right location.  None of these are insurmountable issues if there are people who look to the future.

Here is a clean form of electricity production that doesn't created harmful emissions, it doesn't involve hazardous chemicals or rare elements in its manufacture and it had a lifespan of many decades.  These would ideally be placed in areas that are underdeveloped to take advantage of the abundant sunshine.  They could become tourist destinations as well.

Some critics have voiced the objection that these plants are unreliable - only producing electricity during daylight hours, but this is not true.  Because the plant works off the difference in temperature of the air underneath the greenhouse and the outside air, a thermal layer of encapsulated water on the floor of the greenhouse would provide 24 hour energy production.

Why aren't we building these today?????