On Jul 18, 2013, at 1:41 PM, meekerdb wrote:
On 7/18/2013 6:36 AM, Henry Baker wrote:
Somewhere in a desert near L.A., there's a field of mirrors controlled by little pre-Arduino sun-tracking computers that aim the sun at a tower in the middle.
The idea is to create steam in the tower.
I assume that because there hasn't been much press, this idea isn't working out as well as the promoter had expected.
It's near Lancaster and I think it's working just fine. It's the only one in the U.S. but there are several others in the world:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_solar_thermal_power_stations
This can't be right. There is definitely one on Kirkland AFB in Albequerque, near the Atomic Bomb Museum (highly recommended!). I think that one is a prototype, and has been there for at least 7 years. The Wikipedia article presumably is only counting production versions.
Among other problems, transmission losses from the desert to L.A. will eat up perhaps 50% of the electrical energy.
That's a huge over estimate of the loss. Average loss rate is about 7%, but only a small part of that is the loss due to the long, high voltage lines. Measured transmission line losses are 2% to 3% per 1000Km.
http://large.stanford.edu/courses/2010/ph240/harting1/
Brent
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