First Hyrbid Solar Thermal Power Plant In Florida!!

[ScienceRocks]

OK, you never DID meet a tax you didn't like.

So you don't want us to become energy independent? Solar is one resource we could use to do just that.

 

[HenryBHough]

OK, you never DID meet a tax you didn't like.

So you don't want us to become energy independent? Solar is one resource we could use to do just that.

And yet you don't park your SUV.

Typical liberal; unwilling to do its own part but demanding others pay big taxes to make up for that.

 

[ScienceRocks]

OK, you never DID meet a tax you didn't like.

So you don't want us to become energy independent? Solar is one resource we could use to do just that.

And yet you don't park your SUV.

Typical liberal; unwilling to do its own part but demanding others pay big taxes to make up for that.

What's your solution? I am talking about energy independence,,,,NOT global warming or co2.

 

[HenryBHough]

Simple enough.

Unplug your computer. Turn off your lights. Unplug your refrigerator and freezer. Now if you and a few hundred thousand more dedicated liberals do that the need for imported energy of any kind will vanish like Obama's promises. The rest of us can get by quite adequately on domestic power. Until, of course, Obama puts all the coal miners out of work and their families become just so many more darkies living off the slops from The Table of The Messiahs.

 

[flacaltenn]

So you don't want us to become energy independent? Solar is one resource we could use to do just that.

And yet you don't park your SUV.

Typical liberal; unwilling to do its own part but demanding others pay big taxes to make up for that.

What's your solution? I am talking about energy independence,,,,NOT global warming or co2.

We've pretty much ALWAYS BEEN energy independent for electrical grid energy.
It's all domestically sourced.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Nobody complained about Martin Solar when it was Martin natural gas...lol... Suddenly you have a problem with that power plant's output when it matches the one it always had from gas?

Nuclear? Really? Would you like me to start posting Fukushima updates again? One core meltdown can ruin your whole...240,000 years and your country's food and drinking water supply forever. Children of Chernobyl? Is it time to dig those photos out again? I mean, I can if you want...

Yay now they can still jack everyone on their bills and make more profit

So? People pay what they paid before. You think all of a sudden people will sit up and start complaining that the energy they consume at the same rate they're used to is less harmful to our atmosphere now?

What strange spinning y'all are involved in. Just give up the horse and buggy already. It's a new century and new innovations mean new sources of money. Do they always have to necessarily be destructive to the environment? It's like a cult with you guys; the cult of soot, sludge and destruction. It's the oddest thing...

Who says it's harmful to the atmosphere?

 

[flacaltenn]

So FPL spent $476 M to save $178 M over 30 years.

My ass. Do you know what it means to not burn carbon and sell free energy from the sun for most of the year? It adds up to more than that pal. They'll probably have that plant paid off in five years. Imagine selling donuts and having to pay the overhead to truck in flour, sugar, salt, confections etc., energy for the ovens, the deep fryer, the lights in the display case and selling donuts to make a living. Then one day someone comes in and designs a system for you that costs maybe $10,000 [in relative terms to the outlay for the solar thermal plant] that will save you having to buy all those things in overhead to provide your customers with donuts. That's what this plant is. You sell your donuts at the same price but after that new machine is paid off in a couple of years, five maybe tops, you are selling your wares at an ungodly profit margin.

That's what's happened in Florida. They got a machine that provides free boiling water: which is the same as free energy. It's an embarassingly simple technology long known of but suppressed because boiling water with deadly radiation or polluting carbon was a much more tricky endeavor...and therefore..easier to monopolize..

I know you're jazzed, but catch a breath here. The solar thermal provides about 6 or 7 hours of power per day.. It does NOT power 11,000 homes. Nat Gas provides most of the power for this plant. And those are the GOOD days, when Florida is rain-free and cloudless. In fact, in the 1st year of operation, the plant UNDERperformed the promised expectations on the solar side by 42%.

Martin Next Generation Solar Energy Center - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Unit 8 features four 170 MW gas turbines, one 470 MW steam turbine, and a single condenser and cooling tower[1] .[2] The single solar field circuit heats 4 steam generators, after each gas turbine. The Martin solar thermal facility is designed to provide steam for FPL's existing Martin Unit 8 combined cycle unit, thus reducing FPL's use of natural gas. No additional capacity (MW) will result from the operation of the solar thermal facility. The Solar Energy Center has an array of approximately 190,000-mirror parabolic troughs on about 500 acres (202 ha) of the Martin County plant.[3] The solar collectors feed heat to the existing steam plant, generating electricity at a rate of 155,000 MW·h per year.[4] The 2012 solar derived production was about 89,000 MW·h of power, according to records filed with the state’s Public Service Commission. That’s 42% less than what was projected when the plant got approval.[5]

You've got THOUSANDS of motors and servoes to track the sun. And with all that precipt, the 10,000 mirrors are a constant maintenance operation to keep them clean. So much for "free" energy.

It's a PEAKER technology, and it opportunistically reduces the fuel for a nat gas plant. but the extra cost of land, enviro impact, increased maintenance, and reduction of CO2 sinking by stripping the land all come into the "costs" of operation. We'll see how happy the "stockholders" are in a couple of years.

Not a single 7-11 store makes it thru the day/night without fossil fuel or nuclear in this country. And this is interesting technology, but the economics and performance are underwhelming.

 

[thereisnospoon]

It is YOU who have obsession with carbon - that was your point in considering this plant's major advantages - will burn less carbon - why on earth is this good? are you brainwashed much with AGW?

I have nothing against solar - if it is COST EFFICIENT, which this one is NOT - and therefore it is extremely BAD and will fail.

What IS cost efficient and what is the best from ecology standpoint is nuclear power, and so far nothing has surpassed it.

Someone sounds a little grumpy that stockholders of Martin Solar will be making more money from not having to pay for fuel to burn most of the year. Just adjust your investment portfolio bro instead of expecting the world's atmosphere to take a nose dive because you're too lazy to sell and rebuy in another progressive trade with a brighter future in dividends.

Your stupid cannot be the world's responsibility.

I was "brainwashed" in college chemistry. I know what happens to carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide and methanes associated with burning carbons when they mix in the atmosphere, the dynamics of specific heat and the blanket properties of gases that trap heat in the upper atmosphere that normally would escape.

Plus, on a vacation this year I noticed that the Ocean that used to sit way way off shore at my favorite beaches is now lapping at the ramparts along the board walk at high tide. A large stretch of highway that used to be high and dry now sits snugly up against the lapping high tide just ready to breach the levees.

You don't need an advanced degree to see the ocean encroaching closer and closer and closer...

I guess in your quest to convince yourself that the planet is about to spontaneously combust, you forgot about erosion.
Here....Read this....http://www.dvfu.ru/meteo/book/HandbookAtm.pdf

 

[asterism]

Can you imagine how much energy this nation would save solar panels were required on every home????

Less dependence on the middle east
A energy source that is safe, reliable and smart.

It's still too expensive.

 

[asterism]

Can you imagine how much energy this nation would save solar panels were required on every home????

Less dependence on the middle east
A energy source that is safe, reliable and smart.

Ah, but to mandate that the Supreme Court would have to rule that they're a tax.

If it would end our dependence on enemy nations. Why not?

So would nuclear and more fracking.

 

[Jarlaxle]

So can we get back to your first claim, and will you please demonstrate how you think the costs to build this plant in Martin County will be paid off in 5 years?

Let's look at the situation from outer space. If a natural gas company discovered a component it could add to its facility where it didn't have to burn gas for 300 days a year, but could still charge the same rate as if it did, would that company buy that component and install it? The mirrors aren't complicated to make or set up. In fact, they are quite modular and inexpensive compared to the permits and construction of nuclear or coal or gas plants. So next to their brother water-boilers, mirrors are far cheaper.

You can spin all you like, put up charts and graphs till the cows come home, but time will bear out that free energy for most of the year using mirrors, just pressed sheet metal with a reflective side on a simple piece of plumbing, an oil filled tube, is vastly cheaper than burners, scrubbers, mining, refining, transport and environmental damage from coal and natural gas. You'd have to be a moron to not see this is so.

If the mirrors get weathered or dirty.

1. Periodically clean them.

2. Periodically replace them.

Just like all the components of any other coal, nuclear or natural gas facility has to do. It's called maintenance. You may have heard of the term in industry before?

You keep saying that the mirrors are modular and inexpensive compared to the permits and construction costs of other types. Prove that because I don't believe you. I've done my part and posted actual costs. Why won't you?

She NEVER posts numbers, because she KNOWS they destroy her argument.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Why settle for burning less fuel when we could burn ZERO fossil fuels with molten salt reactors that will work when the sun is not shining and the wind is not blowing.

Zero costs? Do explain.

I will give you one trillion dollars if you point to where he posted "zero costs". Ready...GO!

Stop LYING, Silly!

 

[Jarlaxle]

Zero costs? Do explain.

Where did I say zero cost?

And the fuel would be free since we already have it in storage.

Tell me which do you think would cost more a small reactor that can power 22000 homes 24 hours a day 365 days a year for 20 years or more that is buried underground in a small footprint or the development of thousands of acres of open land to put up monstrous and ugly solar arrays that only provide power during the day?

So the system is foolproof then? Because any leak of radioactive waste results in a minimum of $billions of dollars of environmental damage and cleanup; which the latter is impossible of course for 240,000 years.

Do explain how there is zero % chance of failure of your "free energy" please. Only a zero% chance of failure is acceptable in nuclear water boilers. Anything above zero means the project cannot go forward [see Chernobyl and Fukushima for details]..

Stop LYING, Silly! Just STOP!

The WAMSR is passively safe. (Losing coolant causes it to shut down.) It actually HELPS the waste "problem", because it is FUELED by nuclear waste. (It's a Waste-Annihliating Molten Salt Reactor.)

 

[Jarlaxle]

Can you imagine how much energy this nation would save solar panels were required on every home????

Less dependence on the middle east
A energy source that is safe, reliable and smart.

Sure...how about YOU pay to re-engineer my 160-year-old house for that! Unfortunately, they would never be anything close to efficient, because the peak of my roof (and it's steep, like many New England houses) is laid out so the panels could not face south.

 

[Jarlaxle]

OK, you never DID meet a tax you didn't like.

So you don't want us to become energy independent? Solar is one resource we could use to do just that.

Are you in favor of greatly expending nuclear power? If not, you are not serious about wanting to be energy independent. It is that simple.

 

[Spiderman]

Where did I say zero cost?

And the fuel would be free since we already have it in storage.

Tell me which do you think would cost more a small reactor that can power 22000 homes 24 hours a day 365 days a year for 20 years or more that is buried underground in a small footprint or the development of thousands of acres of open land to put up monstrous and ugly solar arrays that only provide power during the day?

So the system is foolproof then? Because any leak of radioactive waste results in a minimum of $billions of dollars of environmental damage and cleanup; which the latter is impossible of course for 240,000 years.

Do explain how there is zero % chance of failure of your "free energy" please. Only a zero% chance of failure is acceptable in nuclear water boilers. Anything above zero means the project cannot go forward [see Chernobyl and Fukushima for details]..

Stop LYING, Silly! Just STOP!

The WAMSR is passively safe. (Losing coolant causes it to shut down.) It actually HELPS the waste "problem", because it is FUELED by nuclear waste. (It's a Waste-Annihliating Molten Salt Reactor.)

MSRs don't need coolants per se.

If the reactor gets too hot the liquid expands thereby slowing the reaction and dropping the temperature.

The safety valve to the dump tanks works like a freeze plug in a car radiator. If the temperature gets hot enough or the reactor loses power the plug melts away allowing the liquid fuel to drain into multiple tanks where it will cool and solidify.

Afterwards the solid fuel can be heated again and reintroduced to the reactor chamber.

One of the best attributes of MSRs is they run at atmospheric pressure so even if a breach occurs no contaminated steam or gases are under pressure to spew into the air.

 

[Jarlaxle]

Actually, the article I read (and linked for Silly, who, of course, ignored it) said they WERE actively cooled...but if the cooling system failed, the safety plug would melt as you describe.

Having said that, I am perfectly willing to believe there is more than one WAMSR design!

 

[Silhouette]

MSRs don't need coolants per se.

If the reactor gets too hot the liquid expands thereby slowing the reaction and dropping the temperature.

The safety valve to the dump tanks works like a freeze plug in a car radiator. If the temperature gets hot enough or the reactor loses power the plug melts away allowing the liquid fuel to drain into multiple tanks where it will cool and solidify.

Afterwards the solid fuel can be heated again and reintroduced to the reactor chamber.

One of the best attributes of MSRs is they run at atmospheric pressure so even if a breach occurs no contaminated steam or gases are under pressure to spew into the air.

Not in the air, but in the ground. My point is that boiling water with mirrors isn't going to have safety risks at all.

All the infrastructure and failsafes you'd have to build into your water boiler is supposed to cost less than an array of simple mirrors, right? I mean, we're talking about costs [total, all over time for pure overhead and environmental damages, pollution of groundwater etc.] right? Your system is supposed to be better than solar thermal cost wise?

 

[Spiderman]

MSRs don't need coolants per se.

If the reactor gets too hot the liquid expands thereby slowing the reaction and dropping the temperature.

The safety valve to the dump tanks works like a freeze plug in a car radiator. If the temperature gets hot enough or the reactor loses power the plug melts away allowing the liquid fuel to drain into multiple tanks where it will cool and solidify.

Afterwards the solid fuel can be heated again and reintroduced to the reactor chamber.

One of the best attributes of MSRs is they run at atmospheric pressure so even if a breach occurs no contaminated steam or gases are under pressure to spew into the air.

Not in the air, but in the ground. My point is that boiling water with mirrors isn't going to have safety risks at all.

All the infrastructure and failsafes you'd have to build into your water boiler is supposed to cost less than an array of simple mirrors, right? I mean, we're talking about costs [total, all over time for pure overhead and environmental damages, pollution of groundwater etc.] right? Your system is supposed to be better than solar thermal cost wise?

Yes because for the money an MSR generates power every second of every day not just when the sun is out and it does so in a fraction of the space. In fact no new land development need take place at all as the reactors could be buried on site of existing fossil fuel power generating plants.

We could leave thousands if not tens of thousands of acres of land wild , free and uncluttered

 

[thereisnospoon]

Let's look at the situation from outer space. If a natural gas company discovered a component it could add to its facility where it didn't have to burn gas for 300 days a year, but could still charge the same rate as if it did, would that company buy that component and install it? The mirrors aren't complicated to make or set up. In fact, they are quite modular and inexpensive compared to the permits and construction of nuclear or coal or gas plants. So next to their brother water-boilers, mirrors are far cheaper.

You can spin all you like, put up charts and graphs till the cows come home, but time will bear out that free energy for most of the year using mirrors, just pressed sheet metal with a reflective side on a simple piece of plumbing, an oil filled tube, is vastly cheaper than burners, scrubbers, mining, refining, transport and environmental damage from coal and natural gas. You'd have to be a moron to not see this is so.

If the mirrors get weathered or dirty.

1. Periodically clean them.

2. Periodically replace them.

Just like all the components of any other coal, nuclear or natural gas facility has to do. It's called maintenance. You may have heard of the term in industry before?

You keep saying that the mirrors are modular and inexpensive compared to the permits and construction costs of other types. Prove that because I don't believe you. I've done my part and posted actual costs. Why won't you?

She NEVER posts numbers, because she KNOWS they destroy her argument.

I did a little research on these panels. They are shaped to very low tolerances. Measured in "tenths" which is in ten thousandths of an inch. Then precision ground and polished. Very expensive process.