ESolar’s First Solar Power Tower Operational!
A solar power tower is a solar power plant that uses fields of hundreds of mirrors to focus sunlight on a boiler to produce electricity. This new power plant has two towers and 24000 mirrors and produces around 5 megawatts of power, enough to power about 4000 homes in areas near the Lancaster California power plant. ESolar has strong funding from the likes of Google and other large clean-tech focused venture capital firms. ESolar’s new power plant is small scale, but an excellent demonstration of their technology. The goal of the project (one might say this is the goal of all solar power projects actually) is to produce electricity cheaper than coal. But ESolar seems to have a technology that is impressing people in the know. Already they have contracts to build 465 more megawatts of these solar power towers at three sites in California and New Mexico.
yeh, definate catch 22 there. I should put it to my city- which utilises a geothermal aquifer 2 km deep- to build solar panals on top too. Of the two, I prefer solar as I don’t like the idea of mining heat, as surely the water down there is finite
why?
ah, I was trying to research that. It open in the 80s but was mainly used in the mid 1990s- is it still going?
October = August?
We need simple energy for homes, this solar station will produce 2.5kw for 8-10 hours.
This would keep food cold for days when the power goes out, using solar energy to recharge the battery pack.
i like the use of solar technology and think that solar will be a very dominant source of energy in the future. i was wondering how much land do the mirrors for the power towers take up? if we covered the same amount of land in solar cells, would we generate more or less energy?
That picture frame behind your head, does it just have the stock photos in it and not your pictures? I know, totally not what this vlog is about, but it distracted me.
i wish solar panels for your home were cheaper! i’d be all over that
but great to see what companies are doing
but don’t they need water and in places like Mexico and California, that is a diminishing resource.
Hank, who is going to clean all of those mirrors???
You get FIVE stars for the guitar on your wall.
any of the millions of unemployed people in California.
no, its really more hot than cool.
I agree, but dont worry, this was designed for the desert. No trees were harmed in the making of this power plant. In fact, they had to build around some Joshua trees and were not allowed to remove the trees.
there are no Photovoltaic solar panels being used. They appear to be mirrors.
Those jerks are gonna say that the company isn’t paying them enough. Then all the jobs will go to immigrants.
good point
Well, then. Now I’m happy
Thanks for the information XD
this is true. But they actually have a machine that cleans the mirrors.
lol october lol
5th of October 2009 isn’t even a real date, and nor will it ever be lol
I freaking hate this jumpy editing every single person on youtube is using…. especialy when they over do it…
Saw a great show about this solar power station on World’s Toughest Fixes on the NatGeo channel. I just looked and it is showing again TOMORROW. Fascinating stuff!
Please help me hank!
I use final cut express and iMovie.
How do you export your videos to look soooo good?!
o mg ssoo have to do this
I LOVE the irony that in this video you see an ELECTRIC guitar where we would usually see the accoustic … xD or maybe it was intentional … In which case Hank you are a genius