The world's first molten salt concentrating solar power plant

[bananas]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/first-molten-salt-solar-power

The world's first molten salt concentrating solar power plant
'Archimede' demonstration solar plant in Sicily becomes the first to use molten salts to store energy overnight
Thursday 22 July 2010 11.32 BST

This month, the Italian utility Enel unveiled "Archimede", the first Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in the world to use molten salts for heat transfer and storage, and the first to be fully integrated to an existing combined-cycle gas power plant. Archimede is a 5 MW plant located in Priolo Gargallo (Sicily), within Europe's largest petrochemical district. The breakthrough project was co-developed by Enel, one of World's largest utilities, and ENEA, the Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development.

Several CSP plants already operate around the world, mainly in the US and Spain. They use synthetic oils to capture the Sun's energy in the form of heat, by using mirrors that beam sunlight onto a pipe where pressurised oil heats up to around 390°C. A heat exchanger is then used to boil water and run a conventional steam turbine cycle. Older CSP plants can only operate at daytime – when direct sunlight is available -, an issue that has been dealt with in recent years by introducing heat storage, in the form of molten salts. Newer CSP plants, as the many under construction in Spain, use molten salts storage to extend the plants' daily operating hours. Archimede is the first plant in the world to use molten salts not just to store heat but also to collect it from the sun in the first place.

This is a competitive advantage, for a variety of reasons. Molten salts can operate at higher temperatures than oils (up to 550°C instead of 390°C), therefore increasing efficiency and power output of a plant. With the higher-temperature heat storage allowed by the direct use of salts, the plant can also extend its operating hours well further than an oil-operated CSP plant with molten salt storage, thus working 24 hours a day for several days in the absence of sun or during rainy days. This feature also enables a simplified plant design, as it avoids the need for oil-to-salts heat exchangers, and eliminates the safety and environmental concerns related to the use of oils (molten salts are cheap, non-toxic common fertilizers and do not catch fire, as opposed to synthetic oils currently used in CSP plants around the World). Last but not least, the higher temperatures reached by the molten salts enable the use of steam turbines at the standard pressure/temperature parameters as used in most common gas-cycle fossil power plants. This means that conventional power plants can be integrated – or, in perspective, replaced – with this technology without expensive retrofits to the existing assets.

<snip>

So why hasn't this technology come before? There are both political and technical issues behind this. Let's start with politics. The concept dates back to 2001, when Italian nuclear physicist and Nobel prize winner Carlo Rubbia, ENEA's President at the time, first started Research & Development on molten salt technology in Italy. Rubbia has been a preminent CSP advocate for a long time, and was forced to leave ENEA in 2005 after strong disagreements with the Italian Government and its lack of convincing R&D policies. He then moved to CIEMAT, the Spanish equivalent of ENEA. Under his guidance, Spain has now become world leader in the CSP industry. Luckily for the Italian industry, the Archimede project was not abandoned and ENEA continued its development till completion.

<snip>

Sometimes you may hear hype about "Accelerator-Driven" nuclear reactors.
Carlo Rubbia is credited as the inventor of these reactors.
But the hypesters and hucksters and naifs do not mention (or are not aware):
Carlo Rubbia has turned strongly against nuclear energy, and advocates solar energy.
They are hyping a technology which the inventor speaks out against.
Here is an interview with Carlo Rubbia last year: "The nuclear error, The future is in the sun"

[AtheistCrusader]

1. Wrong. Good for them, but wrong.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_Two potassium/sodium hybrid.

"This gave Solar Two the ability to produce 10 megawatts. Solar Two used molten salt, a combination of 60% sodium nitrate and 40% potassium nitrate, as an energy storage medium instead of oil or water as with Solar One. This helped in energy storage during brief interruptions in sunlight due to clouds. The molten salt also allowed the energy to be stored in large tanks for future use such as night time.Solar Two proved it could run continuously around the clock producing power. Solar Two was decommissioned in 1999"

http://www.solar-reserve.com/
And Sandia National Laboratories has a hybrid that uses quartz and sodium.

Looks like they beat http://www.sener.es/ Gemasolar project though.

[bananas]

3. Misleading title, but the article explains:

Archimede is the first plant in the world to use molten salts not just to store heat but also to collect it from the sun in the first place.

[AtheistCrusader]

4. Still not the first. Possibly the only currently operational.

"The unique feature of Solar Two is its use of molten salt to capture and store the sun's heat. Sandia has the technical lead in developing molten-salt technology for solar plants and provided the technical expertise required for Solar Two. These solar plants operate by using large, sun-tracking mirrors to concentrate sunlight on a receiver that sits atop a tower. The concentrated sunlight heats the molten salt as it flows through the receiver. The very hot salt is then piped away, stored, and used when needed to produce steam to drive a turbine/generator that produces electricity. The system is capable of operating smoothly through intermittent clouds and can continue generating electricity long into the night. "

[bananas]

10. Thanks. nt

[msongs]

2. roof top solar please, NOT corporate controlled solar nt

[AtheistCrusader]

5. Yes.

Concentrating can work, of course, in certain locations, but it has a large footprint, and if we can use the existing footprint of human dwellings, so much the better.

My house is actually properly oriented for solar panels across the entire southern facing roofline. Just a matter of costs for me now. I just can't afford it. Yet.

[txlibdem]

6. It's not either or -- we need as much of both as we can get

Concentrating Solar Power has the best potential of any of the renewables to supply all or most of our electricity needs. The only thing stopping it was storage for when there are clouds and at night but with the molten salt storage and other storage technologies being tested and investigated now we are on the right track. The only question is how much land are we going to need.

I say we should clear the path to be able to use as much land as is necessary, so we can get off of foreign oil by driving electric cars and eventually end the use of coal and (even farther out in the future) stop using natural gas. Let people lease the land from the Gov't just like the oil companies do. Actually, they should immediately remove all US land from the oil company leases and give it to people for use as Concentrating Solar Power plants, with the Gov getting tax revenue on the profits.

[FBaggins]

7. "Carlo Rubbia has turned strongly against nuclear energy, and advocates solar energy"

Really?

Wow. Oh... and look. He thinks that it should be a major part of their 2020 plan.

You know... I've also heard that Pickens has turned against the Pickens Plan and now advocates for natural gas.

You don't suppose that it's for the same reason, do you?

[txlibdem]

8. No deviation from the Pickens Plan

He has always been in favor of natural gas to drive our big rig trucks. A second part is building huge numbers of wind turbines.

Natural gas causes 40% less pollution than diesel, even low-sulfur diesel, so it's a good move. Eventually batteries will be cheap enough to replace fuel burning rigs but we would need both far cheaper batteries and a nationwide electric vehicle charging infrastructure (at least along all the interstates) so the trucks can recharge.

[FBaggins]

9. "T. Boone Pickens Just Dropkicked The American Wind Industry "

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x254688