| It's no secret at all that the world is facing an energy | | | | system, where the load is 24 hours a day. Storing |
| crisis. With fossil fuels prices rising, and demand | | | | energy as heat is much more efficient that storing it as |
| growing higher than ever, people are scrambling for | | | | electricity, so these plants will have a huge leg up in this |
| alternatives. Unfortunately, many of the alternatives | | | | area. Another cool feature of solar thermal is that it |
| have some major drawbacks which prevent them | | | | could be used to help desalinate salt water, making it a |
| from being effective options at this point. | | | | doubly useful resource in coastline areas. |
| Enter concentrated solar thermal. Though its certainly | | | | Another advantage of solar thermal energy is its great |
| not perfect yet, this technology shows some great | | | | reliability. Since the system is quite simple, running a |
| promise for providing clean energy well into the future. | | | | solar plant based on the technology will not take much |
| Solar power is not a new idea at all, and many photo | | | | of an effort. Because of this, these power plants can |
| voltaic based plants (standard "solar panels") have | | | | last long into the future, providing power for years to |
| already been built, these plants are quite expensive | | | | come. |
| due to the cost of the panel materials, and take up | | | | It has been estimated the the United States power |
| huge amounts of land to be effective. Even worse, as | | | | needs could be fulfilled by a 92 by 92 mile grid of solar |
| soon as the sun stops shining, the electricity stops | | | | thermal generators. This is a huge number in reality, but |
| being produced. | | | | it does illustrate that this could be a viable technology. |
| Solar thermal solves these problem by taking a | | | | And indeed, it viability has been recognized as private |
| completely different design. Rather than converting the | | | | investors such as Pierre Omidyar are putting increasing |
| sunlight directly to electricity, as photo voltaic panels do, | | | | amounts of funding into the industry. With this type of |
| solar thermal systems use some sort of reflector dish | | | | support, it will be interesting to see where this |
| to concentrate the sunlight into a small area. This | | | | technology heads in the future. |
| concentrated sunlight is then used to heat fluid inside | | | | Though it is certainly not perfect just yet, concentrated |
| an absorber tube. Think of shining a magnifying glass | | | | solar thermal power generation has the potential to |
| onto a test tube of water. This heated fluid is then | | | | transform the way we think about energy in this |
| transferred to a heat engine, which converts the heat | | | | country. The dream of limitless, clean, renewable |
| into electricity. | | | | energy may seem a little pie in the sky for some, but |
| This system has several advantages. One of the | | | | the solar thermal technology helps bring it one step |
| most notable advantages is that since the heat fluid | | | | closer to becoming a reality. Keep an eye out, and I |
| can be store in insulated reservoirs until needed, solar | | | | predict you will see solar thermal power generation |
| thermal plants can produce power at nigh and on | | | | becoming a huge player in the upcoming energy |
| overcast days, which is a huge plus in an actual power | | | | revolution. |