3 ms·

If you're curious as to how the thermal energy is extracted: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X10002161 http://www.sciencedirect.com/sc

If you're curious as to how the thermal energy is extracted: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X10002161 http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0038092X10... > Heat has generally been successfully extracted from the lower convective zone (LCZ) of solar ponds by two main methods. In the first, hot brine from the LCZ is circulated through an external heat exchanger, as tested and demonstrated in El Paso and elsewhere. In the second method, a heat transfer fluid circulates in a closed cycle through an in-pond heat exchanger, as used in the Pyramid Hill solar pond, in Victoria, Australia.

david2777 13y ago
They use the hot brine to vaporize a motive fluid such as liquid pentane in the heat exchanger, when the liquid is converted to gas it creates a high pressure environment and is piped into a turbine which spins the generator. Then they condense the motive fluid back to a liquid so they can vaporize it again. It's the same way binary geothermal power works, with the Organic Rankine Cycle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Rankine_cycle http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_Rankine_cycle