The time is right for alternative energy sources. With the price of fossil fuels climbing to prohibitive levels and pollution causing severe global consequences, more and more people are looking for alternative sources of clean power. The Solar Mission Project’s focus is a solar tower powered by physics. The tower in the picture above is 1 kilometer tall, making it the tallest manmade construct in the world.
The tower would be surrounded by a 25,000-acre, transparent circular skirt of greenhouse panels, which would warm the air trapped underneath to about 95 degrees Fahrenheit above the ambient temperature. The cool air at the top of the 400-feet-in-diameter tower would then draw the hot air up from ground level at a speed of roughly 35 miles per hour, which in turn would drive the 32 turbines around the bottom half of the tower. The turbines provide around 200 megawatts of electricity.
The tower’s energy output is approximately equivalent to a small nuclear power station, and could power up to 200,000 average homes, as well as eliminate the production of up to 900,000 metric tonnes (830,000 U.S. tons) of greenhouse gasses. The Project is an attractive alternative power source proposition because it can achieve the same goal as a windmill farm without depending on the wind to generate power.
