US Power Requirements Solved in 92 Miles Square
Editor’s note: As commenter pointed out, there was an error in the post originally — the land space presented in Mills’ presentation is 92 miles square, not 92 square miles. We apologize for the mistake, and have corrected it.
Throughout the past decade or so, whenever anyone has proposed the idea of implementing a solar power generation system, they have been mocked and scorned, especially within the United States where it was believed that the landmass needed to power the entire country was simply unfeasible.
A scene from The West Wing
Speaking at the International Solar Energy Society conference, chairman and chief scientific officer of solar company Ausra David Mills presented a paper (PDF) that proposed solving the United States energy problems by switching entirely to solar. He even promised solving night-time energy problems with solar power.
His company has been perfecting the solution presented, but it would not be a small change by any stretch of the imagination.
Using a Fresnel configuration — essentially based upon the lens design of the same name, which allows for thinner and lighter lenses to capture light in, say, lighthouses — the mirrors would collect heat to warm tubes of liquid, rather than solar cells. The liquid turned to steam by the solar energy would thus power nearby turbines, and create electricity.
It’s not a new technology, and Mills accepts this, but he believes it to be the best technology, because he believes that the tubes will hold heat and still produce steam at night.
The paper that Mills presented also calculated the total land space needed to fulfill all of America’s power requirements: a total of 92 miles square.
The problem arises in what would be the next step of the process: integration with the current electric infrastructure. In fact, the entire system would have to be revamped. The current AC grid would have to be converted to High Voltage DC, so that the 50% loss of power across transfer lines would be reduced to 3%.
Mills believes that this is a necessary, yet huge, undertaking, but would move the country from "capital-intensive fossil fuel plants that need to run 24/7" to "electricity created by people’s and the economy’s daily rhythm." Renewable sources such as solar and wind both follow this latter description closely.
The company knows that their proposal is more of a thought experiment rather than a plan near implementation, but they are doing their part to move us forward. In fact, in addition to their "thought experiment," Ausra is developing a 175-megawatt solar power plant which will utilize their solar liquid tubes, hopefully hitting the market by mid-2009.
Their business is based around solar power generation and solar power storage. It is the future, they believe, and a future that will grant humans a safe environment to live in. The US Southwest is all but calling out for such an experiment to be implemented, with its constant sunshine. And though California’s Mojave Desert power stations are nothing more than power generation for peak times, one day, maybe, we could see the integration of solar as the main power source, rather than a back-up.
"We’re hoping to make announcements at the end of the month for multiple projects," Mills says.
Here’s hoping!
Green Wombat - Solar Nation: Can the Sun Power the U.S.? via EcoGeek - 92 Miles Sq. of Solar Could Power the USA
International Solar Energy Society
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Tags: electricity, green, Green News, Green Tech, power, Renewable Power, Science and Tech, solar, solar-power
September 24th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
This is fantastic! I hope we can get closer to this kind of thinking in the near future.
September 24th, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Your numbers compare apples and oranges - the paper claims that the land needed is 145 km (92 mi) on a side, not 92 square miles. A square 92 miles on a side is 8,464 square miles … over 5x the size of Rhode Island, not 6% of Rhode Island.
Of course, given all of the open desert land in this country, it’s still a good idea, but much greater in geographic scope than your article portrays.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:09 pm
Great stuff! Hope this can go worldwide soon enough.
September 24th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
How about using less energy in the first place. That would be a great first step. Then we can figure out how to cleanly produce the reduced amount we require.
September 25th, 2007 at 5:46 am
Oddly, this is but one of two solar thermal designs from Australians - the other being Enviromission, which conceives of a large greenhouse at the base of a chimney,
in which turbines would be run by rising hot air.
I’ve come to the conclusion that wind sucks - it costs way too much, and is non-dispatchable (uncontrollable)
and its output is negatively correlated with peak energy
demand, the worst conceivable situation. The advantage of solar thermal is that 1) its output is positively correlated with our needs, and 2) it can be stored for many hours, allowing the sun to power the evening peak demand hours, and 3) as can be seen by the 92 square mile
demonstration, solar is far, far more dense than wind,
far cheaper and, unlike photovoltaic, dispatchable.
Let’s give California the big Bronx cheer for throwing away billions on economically useless wind and photovoltaic and showing an almost complete lack of foresight for the coming superior technologies, like solar thermal.