The one criticism of this method is the concentrated sunlight has caused birds to spontaneously combust in flight. If animal safety activists are to be pleased, safety needs to be implemented with either safety cages (though that will reduce incoming sunlight) or build the rigs in desolate areas with as little bird migration as possible (though electric power will be lost over the long transmission distance). It is a cool concept, but like any other good idea on a big scale, some drawback will be a fact.
the heat exchanger is interesting to me as is the Delta T of the return fluid , the circulator used is a true Pump or a differential pressure recirulator that simply establishes flow?
Hey i was wondering how does molten salt affect ur pipes? and what methods do you use for maintenance if this is an issue? i am thinkin about how corrosion might be a huge factor here as i recall liquids with salt being really bad for metal pipes?
Corrosion is a matter of chemistry. Not all salts corrode all metals. One example is Hastelloy-N, an alloy specifically formulated for the Beryllium-Fluoride salt used in the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s. It operated for 5 years with no significant corrosion.
You forgot to mention "THORIUM" in that "experiment". Hey, I wonder if they could ADD a Thorium module to heat the MOLTEN SALT, and continue to produce ELECTRICITY at PEAK CAPACITY... What do you think? a HybridSolarThoriumMoltenSaltStation HSTMSS™ (not Reactor) ITS ALL ABOUT BRANDING/MARKETING. PROBLEM SOLVED LET THE AGE OF THORIUM/SOLAR POWER BEGIN!!!
Could this be done with Brine from desalination instead of molten salt? Though it may necessary to process the brine so it fits same the function as molten salt.
What I think Solar Reserve means, = Salt will remain HEATED in a proper ThermoStatic non-corrosive Container, and then when needed it can be cycled through the exchanger to heat the water and produce Electricity at the Steam Turbine. Molten Salt is not a Car Battery. In a way, it's similar to a water reserve which when there is electricity produced over grid demand, then that electricity is used to pump water from a lower elevation to a reservoir at a higher elevation, to be used as a supplemental hydro-electric generator during peak grid demand. But Essentially, -- YES.
No. It's not like a battery (not like an electrochemistry source). The melt salt alone don't do nothing, he don't ionize nothing, he is used in this system just to transfer his heat to water to create steam and with pneumatic force, the steam spin the generator (probably something contain magnets and copper wires (electromagnetic induction)). Witch is something very different from a battery. They have choose melted salt cause it's easy to get, don't need high pressure (witch can be to dangerous) to maintain heated and in the liquid state. And so far... I see the Solar Reserve channel have said "yes" to your question, but I think they are lazy to explain this difference.
Is there any possibilities for the molten salt to freeze when it doesn't receive enough heat from sunlight? If there is any, how to prevent molten salt from freezing?
Most of them are solid below 400°F, that's why the videos mentions that the Salt would be kept between 500°F and 1000°F. I assume at 500°F the system would shut down to keep the Salt liquefied.
And they mention 1°F heat loss per day, which is very good, so cooling from 500°F would give them plenty of time before it solidifies. There must be some auxiliary power available on site to heat up and liquify the salt during commissioning so in the worst case it could be used to keep the salt molten.
Considering the only resources consumed are the initial construction and occasional topping up of the Molten Salt and water, I'd say it's far more sustainable than any fossil-fuel system at least.
+fromkentucky But I mean would it be able to successfully supply a power grid to a city with say 1 million people. Because where I live in Adelaide, Australia, we currently get a fair few blackouts. This is because of a faulty power grid and bad weather, but because of 50% of the city being run off of wind turbines and other renewable sources, it can take up to a day and in some other remote places of South Australia, it can take a week for the power to be restored. I'd like to think that this solution would be able to help clear out the last 49% of non-renewables and actually have a sustainable power grid that can restore itself within hours.
Jamie, I also live in Adelaide. Those renewables relied on synchronising to the frequency and voltage of base load power so when the base load power went down protection systems shut the whole lot down. Too many politicians not listening to the engineers LOL. SolarReserve mentions that they can operate as base load power which is encouraging. I assume they have the technology to work in parallel with existing power generation.
