I like this better . . .

These are much more attractive than the wind turbines too. Seems like these would be more environmentally friendly. Has Pickens seen this?

Permalink Reply by Michelle on August 9, 2008 at 2:03am: Uhm.... they use wind turbines inside of them to generate electricity ;)

But seriously, this is a very interesting idea. From the very brief reading I've done on this, you need to build a solar collector of several thousand acres (a glass covered building) over a bed of something that will store the heat (rocks, concrete, or salt water)... and a 1000 meter tall tower to generate 200MW. That sounds like a significant investment in resources to build the building and in land itself. Something that big would be quite a site to be sure.

With standard wind turbines, a technology that has already been developed, the land under the turbines can still be used for farming and ranching.

Of course, if we continue our current direction in this country, we'll need those humongous green houses to grow food!

I'm just throwing out my thoughts.

Michelle; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Kathy Lee Hart on August 11, 2008 at 7:11am: This is a very interesting engineering concept - from what I've read the initial cost of construction is 500M-700M with a yearly potential return of $150M for live fish, $ 70M for biodiesel, $ 50M for fresh water, $ 25M for electricity, $ 8M for salt giving $303M TOTAL REVENUE. I just can't seem to wrap my brain around the area size of such an installation.

Pat help me out here - Are we talking 1sq. mile, 10 sq. miles or? (--resulting in the entire ecological footprint of the US population being something like the size of Florida (rather than half its size as is South Carolina).; ▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Jim Martin on October 7, 2008 at 1:40pm: I suspect Pickens is too focused on his basic direction to give much consideration to alternatives right now. Multiple uses certainly can enhance the concept. I am particularly interested in the Solar Windmill concept, which combines the Solar Updraft Tower with wind energy collection. Simply adding 1-way valves around the bottom for air-flow in and 1-way valves near the top for air-flow out leads to an increase in power output. See:

http://push.pickensplan.com/forum/topic/show?id=2187034%3ATopic%3A2...

The Solar Windmill concept is new and has not been completely analyzed. I suspect the optimum would have a larger diameter for the tower and that the collector area would slope up to a higher intersection point.; ▶ Reply to This