First Hyrbid Solar Thermal Power Plant In Florida!!

[thereisnospoon]

And I never said energy was free. That's your line not mine.

If a molten salt reactor fails the liquid medium flows into a reservoir and cools. It's all part of the design.

And byw nothing man made has a 0% chance of failure.

So, when the molten salt reactor fails and "the liquid medium flows into a reservoir and cools", I have a couple of questions:

1. What is the "liquid medium" and

2. Where is the reservior?

3. Is it completely isolated from any environmental vector that might pollute say, groundwater or air or soils for the 240,000 years it takes for plutonium [if that's part of the "liquid medium"] to lose its deadly radioactivity?

Or would it just be a more sensible and morally-responsible idea given the gravity of radioactive plutonium, to just boil water with mirrors with a simple carbon backup for cloudy days and at nightime?

Wait a minute. You touted this thing as though it were the second coming. Extolling the plant's virtues. Now you're asking all these questions as though you know nothing about it.
Do your own homework.
Look, no one is claiming to be 'anti solar power'. The issues pointed out here are matters of practicality and financial.
Of course as a liberal, asking questions or pointing out potential pitfalls of one of your pet ideas is viewed as 'criticism' and in your world criticism is not permitted.
Well that's typical lib arrogance. You people claim to have all of the answers.

 

[thereisnospoon]

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.

Another unfunded government nanny state mandate?
Are you abusing controlled substances?

 

[thereisnospoon]

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?

Ahh yes...One of you lefties comes up with an idea and right on queue "hey, let's make it mandatory so everybody has to pay for it!".
Tell ya what. Let's do a little experiment. How about we have the govt mandate that everyone who agrees with your plan be the guinea pig. YOU pay for it FIRST. Then let us know how great your idea is.

 

[Spiderman]

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.

Another unfunded government nanny state mandate?
Are you abusing controlled substances?

I'm fine with people putting solar panels on their roofs. We have hundreds of thousands of acres of south and southwest facing rooftops in the country.

But I think it should be a private venture between the public and the utility companies. Maybe a utility company could lease the roof space from its customers and pay them with lower electric rates.

No government needed

 

[thereisnospoon]

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.

Hardly the point. We have abundant energy resources which this Administration refuses to even acknowledge they exist let alone allow exploration on federal lands to see if it is economically viable to harvest it.
That would make us energy independent.
But NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO...You tree huggers say "that's dirty energy. We don't want that!"
Yeah, well when you come up with someting that is affordable and readily available, let us know.
While solar is a good idea, the cost benefit ratio is not there.

 

[eddy106]

Did you all know that one of the biggest funding sources for solar energy in the United States is Walmart? Walmart is converting more solar energy into real energy than 38 states combined. They are actively installing solar panels on the roofs of many stores. In fact, 75 percent of the stores in California already have these panels. When the California project is complete, they will produce more than 70 million kilowatt hours of solar energy. Walmart estimates that these panels will reduce their utility bills by about 30 percent. Walmart says that they hope one day to operate all of their stores around the world on renewable energy.

 

[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?

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

I'm actually a little more concerned about the "out of sight, out of mind" underground resources that stand poised to be much harder to clean up if there is an issue...those resources that provide our last sources of agricultural irregation for, you know, our FOOD SUPPLY..

Radiation and food don't go together that well.

Actually, that you brought up molten salt. Are you aware that saline tanks that operate in conjunction with solar thermal systems to store extra heat energy for use in boiling refrigerant turbines [lower temperature requirements] at night are an option for solar thermal plants? In some spots in the desert regions of the Southwest, power could be generated 24/7 nearly 365 days a year.

 

[Silhouette]

I'm fine with people putting solar panels on their roofs. We have hundreds of thousands of acres of south and southwest facing rooftops in the country.

But I think it should be a private venture between the public and the utility companies. Maybe a utility company could lease the roof space from its customers and pay them with lower electric rates.

No government needed

What does putting photovoltaic panels on the roof got to do with solar thermal concentrating mirrors runing boiling water turbines?

You lost me there.

 

[thereisnospoon]

Did you all know that one of the biggest funding sources for solar energy in the United States is Walmart? Walmart is converting more solar energy into real energy than 38 states combined. They are actively installing solar panels on the roofs of many stores. In fact, 75 percent of the stores in California already have these panels. When the California project is complete, they will produce more than 70 million kilowatt hours of solar energy. Walmart estimates that these panels will reduce their utility bills by about 30 percent. Walmart says that they hope one day to operate all of their stores around the world on renewable energy.

And we will STILL see Walmart haters on other threads.
Mostly pro union and far left types who despise wealth and creation.
Good for Walmart. That's where this belongs. In the private sector.
Not in the hands of a bumbling wasteful government.
Ya listening Mr President?

 

[thereisnospoon]

I'm fine with people putting solar panels on their roofs. We have hundreds of thousands of acres of south and southwest facing rooftops in the country.

But I think it should be a private venture between the public and the utility companies. Maybe a utility company could lease the roof space from its customers and pay them with lower electric rates.

No government needed

What does putting photovoltaic panels on the roof got to do with solar thermal concentrating mirrors runing boiling water turbines?

You lost me there.

Genius. Apparently the technology exists that permits solar panel users to 'return' electrical power to the grid. That is like having a miniature power plant.
Where's the problem?

 

[Spiderman]

I'm fine with people putting solar panels on their roofs. We have hundreds of thousands of acres of south and southwest facing rooftops in the country.

But I think it should be a private venture between the public and the utility companies. Maybe a utility company could lease the roof space from its customers and pay them with lower electric rates.

No government needed

What does putting photovoltaic panels on the roof got to do with solar thermal concentrating mirrors runing boiling water turbines?

You lost me there.

I was responding to another post about government mandating the installation of solar panels.

It's not all about you you know.

 

[Spiderman]

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

I'm actually a little more concerned about the "out of sight, out of mind" underground resources that stand poised to be much harder to clean up if there is an issue...those resources that provide our last sources of agricultural irregation for, you know, our FOOD SUPPLY..

Radiation and food don't go together that well.

Actually, that you brought up molten salt. Are you aware that saline tanks that operate in conjunction with solar thermal systems to store extra heat energy for use in boiling refrigerant turbines [lower temperature requirements] at night are an option for solar thermal plants? In some spots in the desert regions of the Southwest, power could be generated 24/7 nearly 365 days a year.

Saline tanks and molten salt reactors have nothing in common.

There would be no threat to groundwater or the food supply as nothing would escape the containment systems. No radioactive water to leak, no gas to be vented

And do you really want to ugly up the beauty of our deserts with thousands of acres of solar panels and wind mills?

I don't.

 

[Jarlaxle]

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.

Wonder how long it would take Florida's salt air to put them out of tolerance.

 

[Silhouette]

Saline tanks and molten salt reactors have nothing in common.

There would be no threat to groundwater or the food supply as nothing would escape the containment systems. No radioactive water to leak, no gas to be vented

And do you really want to ugly up the beauty of our deserts with thousands of acres of solar panels and wind mills?

I don't.

Never? Not one spill or radioactive fluids would ever ever leak from your reactors?

Yeah, I think the world is tired of that broken promise.

The beauty of the desert ruined by solar panels and windmills? Are you serious? Once again you are trying to say that solar photovoltaic panels are the same as concentrating solar reflectors. They are not at all even in the same league. They are as similar as your molten salt radiation swamps and solar thermal's salt tanks that store heat. ie: not at all.

I grew up wandering the desert. The acres needed for power will not be missed. I used to walk for hours and not encounter a single person. In fact, most of the life you find in the desert finds shelter under the shade of things like solar reflectors needed in solar thermal turbine power. If you installed that much shade over the ground in the desert, the animals and plants that would find great joy in the dappled sun as the day went on would be immense. You would see an increase in desert life instead of a decrease. You would also see in increase in desert moisture underneath those shady canopies which is also a boon to life there.

 

[HenryBHough]

The acres of barren tundra in ANWR similarly would not be missed.

But their "pristine beauty", shunned by even caribou (undocumented reindeer), must be preserved at all cost!

 

[flacaltenn]

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

I'm actually a little more concerned about the "out of sight, out of mind" underground resources that stand poised to be much harder to clean up if there is an issue...those resources that provide our last sources of agricultural irregation for, you know, our FOOD SUPPLY..

Radiation and food don't go together that well.

Actually, that you brought up molten salt. Are you aware that saline tanks that operate in conjunction with solar thermal systems to store extra heat energy for use in boiling refrigerant turbines [lower temperature requirements] at night are an option for solar thermal plants? In some spots in the desert regions of the Southwest, power could be generated 24/7 nearly 365 days a year.

Saline tanks and molten salt reactors have nothing in common.

There would be no threat to groundwater or the food supply as nothing would escape the containment systems. No radioactive water to leak, no gas to be vented

And do you really want to ugly up the beauty of our deserts with thousands of acres of solar panels and wind mills?

I don't.

Whatever you do -- don't mention that the Greenies have approved molten salt storage mediums for SOME VERSIONS of his beloved solar thermal installations.. And THEN had the gall to place these dangerous chemicals in the middle of pristine protected desert and suck up water for their boiling from the cactus and the tortoises...

 

[flacaltenn]

Saline tanks and molten salt reactors have nothing in common.

There would be no threat to groundwater or the food supply as nothing would escape the containment systems. No radioactive water to leak, no gas to be vented

And do you really want to ugly up the beauty of our deserts with thousands of acres of solar panels and wind mills?

I don't.

Never? Not one spill or radioactive fluids would ever ever leak from your reactors?

Yeah, I think the world is tired of that broken promise.

The beauty of the desert ruined by solar panels and windmills? Are you serious? Once again you are trying to say that solar photovoltaic panels are the same as concentrating solar reflectors. They are not at all even in the same league. They are as similar as your molten salt radiation swamps and solar thermal's salt tanks that store heat. ie: not at all.

I grew up wandering the desert. The acres needed for power will not be missed. I used to walk for hours and not encounter a single person. In fact, most of the life you find in the desert finds shelter under the shade of things like solar reflectors needed in solar thermal turbine power. If you installed that much shade over the ground in the desert, the animals and plants that would find great joy in the dappled sun as the day went on would be immense. You would see an increase in desert life instead of a decrease. You would also see in increase in desert moisture underneath those shady canopies which is also a boon to life there.

So when they plopped down a GINORMOUS solar thermal plant in the middle of the desert and had to evacuate 100s of desert tortoises, and build ROADS and POWER LINES and maintenance Buildings. THat's OK with you? 30X the footprint of an oil field?

And when they put this DEATH RAY machine in the middle of major migratory flyway and started to ROAST birds out of the air --- that's OK too?

And when they included Molten Salt storage to add a couple hours of generation at dusk in the proximity of the ONLY WATER SOURCE for 100s of miles ---- that's an acceptable pollution risk.. ((I'm referring to the solar thermal that mirrors the light to a central tower in a concentrated beam))

And what the hell IS the diff in enviro footprint of mirrors versus PV panels? I don't see it.. To a migrating flock of birds, they both look like a lake..

 

[Silhouette]

So when they plopped down a GINORMOUS solar thermal plant in the middle of the desert and had to evacuate 100s of desert tortoises, and build ROADS and POWER LINES and maintenance Buildings. THat's OK with you? 30X the footprint of an oil field?

And when they put this DEATH RAY machine in the middle of major migratory flyway and started to ROAST birds out of the air --- that's OK too?

And when they included Molten Salt storage to add a couple hours of generation at dusk in the proximity of the ONLY WATER SOURCE for 100s of miles ---- that's an acceptable pollution risk.. ((I'm referring to the solar thermal that mirrors the light to a central tower in a concentrated beam))

And what the hell IS the diff in enviro footprint of mirrors versus PV panels? I don't see it.. To a migrating flock of birds, they both look like a lake..

Unlike you, I've actually spent a lot of time in the desert and know you are full of crap. Those tortoises would gather around those shady spots instead of flee from them. You could airlift those little guys away and they'd march right back.

Your hyperbole is hilarious. You should do shows..

You know, you're right. We should just stick to boiling water with radioactive substances that stick around in the environment for 240,000 years...and destroy 10s of thousands of square miles around one crippled plant:

 

[asterism]

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?

These aren't simple mirrors.

They are actually quite expensive, on par with photovoltaic solar panels.

 

[flacaltenn]

So when they plopped down a GINORMOUS solar thermal plant in the middle of the desert and had to evacuate 100s of desert tortoises, and build ROADS and POWER LINES and maintenance Buildings. THat's OK with you? 30X the footprint of an oil field?

And when they put this DEATH RAY machine in the middle of major migratory flyway and started to ROAST birds out of the air --- that's OK too?

And when they included Molten Salt storage to add a couple hours of generation at dusk in the proximity of the ONLY WATER SOURCE for 100s of miles ---- that's an acceptable pollution risk.. ((I'm referring to the solar thermal that mirrors the light to a central tower in a concentrated beam))

And what the hell IS the diff in enviro footprint of mirrors versus PV panels? I don't see it.. To a migrating flock of birds, they both look like a lake..

Unlike you, I've actually spent a lot of time in the desert and know you are full of crap. Those tortoises would gather around those shady spots instead of flee from them. You could airlift those little guys away and they'd march right back.

Your hyperbole is hilarious. You should do shows..

You know, you're right. We should just stick to boiling water with radioactive substances that stick around in the environment for 240,000 years...and destroy 10s of thousands of square miles around one crippled plant:

Tortoises would HIDE huh --- desert wanderer?? Is that why those areas were off limits to ATV recreation, but it's OKEY DOKEY to build an access road with tons of traffic into the facility? My guess -- is there's lots of tortoise road pizzas there now.. Good thing REAL enviros decided to relocate them. I'm not giving you rhetoric, but you've brainwashed yourself.. Wanna care for creatures like in the pic below that thought one of your solar thermal installations was a lake and got burnt out of the sky??

And you keep posting this false choice between nuclear and solar.. They are not "ALTERNATIVES" to each other.

1) There is no solar plant design that efficiently works more than 6 to 8 hours per day.

2) No form of solar or wind is suited to adding INCREASED generation to the grid. They are all secondary supplements and peakers.

OTH ---- a typical house powered by conventional "old-style" nuclear generates only 0.7 ounces of waste material per year.. There is nothing special about the "half-life" of nuclear waste. Heavy metals from battery waste have a longer half-life in disposal sites.

And screw your pictures of birth defects from Chernobyl.. My grissly picture has a USA Today behind it and I'm not redoing this again here. There are 2 or 3 threads on Solar Thermal in the Enviro forum.. If you're interested I will link them..

We bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki and just 20 years later -- they were thriving metro areas. Folks are moving back into Chernobyl. And the plant actually remained in operation after the "meltdown". Piss poor engineering and they knew it.. I'll buy any REPUTABLE documentation of Chernobyl effects, but I aint swayed by random pictures without an evidence trail..