In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
timesofisrael.com
In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
1–10 of 26 posts
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#2>Energy from a solar tower is “two to three times more expensive to produce than classic electricity plants using carbon or fuel,” said Eran Gartner
Does that include the cost of building the plant? What are the running cost of a solar tower, and what is the expected lifespan vs a coal one?
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#3There is one country that might have the greatest ability to generate solar power, yet it's still not used, Algeria has one of the biggest deserts in the world and the power generated from there could be enough to get rid of a lot of oil generated power.
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#4>Energy from a solar tower is “two to three times more expensive to produce than classic electricity plants using carbon or fuel,” said Eran Gartner Does that include the cost of building the plant? What are the running cost of a solar tower, and what is the expected lifespan vs a coal one?
Cost is typically LCOE - levelized cost - which takes life time, maintenance, fuel, construction, etc into consideration
This is quite a complex topic and you can google and wiki LCOE for all the gory details.
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#5Classic typical misleading statistics in this article.
Energy is 1% of Israel's gross capacity plus this is solar so it only provides daytime loads which makes the economics worse.
Google's major investment in solar thermal has already gone bust. This is a small financial disaster. The economics of solar thermal are crap. Mirrors break or stop tracking well a lot in high winds of a dessert.
Any problems with a steam turbine atop a high tower are costly to fix.
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#6Now if only they could stop bombing hospitals...
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#7Now if only they could stop bombing hospitals...
How does this contribute to the discussion at hand? This is not reddit.
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#8Now if only they could stop bombing hospitals...
How does this contribute to the discussion at hand? This is not reddit.
I like to rile up the Mossad reputation management folks ever since I found them copy-pasting the same "please no simplified propaganda" retorts from multiple accounts on HN a while back.
Edit: To see the obvious sockpuppetry I'm referring to, look at https://hn.algolia.com/?query=please%20no%20simplified%20pro...
Edit 2: Yep, keep the downvotes coming. It doesn't matter that I have hard evidence of Israeli nationalist manipulation of HN.
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#9Classic typical misleading statistics in this article. Energy is 1% of Israel's gross capacity plus this is solar so it only provides daytime loads which makes the economics worse. Google's major investment in solar thermal has already gone bust. This is a small financial disaster. The economics of solar thermal are crap. Mirrors break or stop tracking well a lot in high winds of a dessert. Any problems with a steam…
The big advantage of this type of solar over photovoltaics is that they continue producing electricity after the sun sets, so can act as base load stations. Typically, the bigger the tower, the longer it can generate, hence the need for big projects and investments.
Re: In Israeli desert, world’s highest solar tower looks to future
#10Classic typical misleading statistics in this article. Energy is 1% of Israel's gross capacity plus this is solar so it only provides daytime loads which makes the economics worse. Google's major investment in solar thermal has already gone bust. This is a small financial disaster. The economics of solar thermal are crap. Mirrors break or stop tracking well a lot in high winds of a dessert. Any problems with a steam…
You didn't read the article closely enough.
> this is solar so it only provides daytime loads which makes the economics worse.
No, they have reservoirs that store heat for the night. Providing energy at night is one of the strength of this system.
> Any problems with a steam turbine atop a high tower are costly to fix.
Again no, the steam is channeled towards the foot of the tower, where electricity is produced.