A desert is seemingly a place where the sun receives the largest number of despised comments. EnviroMission has however decided to end the sun’s misery. How? Well, let’s find out. The organization has decided to set up a solar tower with amazingly huge dimensions in the desert of Arizona. The tower would measure some 2625 ft in height and 130 meters in diameter. This structure is supposed to produce 200MW electricity, enough to power 150,000 US homes. This project would also be a good money eater, costing a sensational US$750 million to the participants.
Coming to how the entire system is going to function, the concept at work is simple, yet very novel. Arizona being a desert, always receives a bountiful solar resource that keeps the air temperature as high as 40 degrees Celsius. The idea is to create a greenhouse at the base of the tower, so that the temperature at the ground level can be raised to 80 – 90 degrees. As we all know hot air rises up making space for a cooler gush, the heated air at the bottom of the tower would rise up. Turbines would be integrated into the system such that when the hot air makes its upward move, it rotates the turbines and electricity is generated. The tower is planned so tall because of the fact that the higher the hot air is pushed, the greater would be the temperature gradient between the layers of air, and subsequently, more energy would be generated.
It would be a needless effort to pronounce the advantages. Of course, the foremost among them would be a clean generated power with absolutely zero emission, pardon the small proportion of warm air that would swoosh out of the tower. Besides, no continuous raw feed would be required to keep the system working. Nature would take that responsibility. The mentionable advantage here would be that given the proposed statistics come true; the arrangement can be expected to keep working for 80 years without any maintenance need.
EnviroMission has already started tasting success. The Southern California Public Power Authority has already agreed to purchase power for the next 30 years from EnviroMission. Truly, it has been a step that possibly could not have been better moved.
Via: Gizmag
