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They address cost in the article. "So instead of relying on burning coal to produce supercritical steam, this method demonstrates that the power plants of the
by illumen 12y ago
They address cost in the article.
"So instead of relying on burning coal to produce supercritical steam, this method demonstrates that the power plants of the future could be using the zero emission energy of the sun to reach peak efficiency levels – and at a cheaper price."
They also say that it is not ready to be used commercially. But this organisation is quite good at making things commercially viable. Rather than just doing research for tax breaks.
From one of the researchers:
“Steam flowed at around 330kg/hr , which equates to a little over 300kW of adsorbed solar energy. The experiments were designed to represent a single element of large scale design, so scale up is related more to multiplicity than redefining heat and mass fluxes.”
This experiment was done so they could scale up production of power by just adding more of these.
- tankenmate 12y agoActually the CSIRO (Commonwealth Science and Industry Research Organisation) is owned by the Australian Government; so research for tax breaks isn't the reason. The CSIRO has a largely good reputation amongst scientists and researchers in Australia. And they have a reasonably good commercialisation rate as well; their WiFi patents (most of which have recently expired if I remember correctly) have earned the Australian government nearly one half a billion dollars.
- dwd 12y agoAnd the current pro-coal/oil/gas Abbott government is cutting funding to ARENA (Australian Renewable Energy Agency), who funded this project, by $435 million in the new budget.