In the Australian outback, plans have been granted to build a new Solar Power Tower. The plans have been accepted and it all goes under way next year (2006).

What is it?
The Solar Power Tower is a massively huge building. So tall, that nothing of it's sort has ever been thought or built before. It dwarfs the once Twin Towers. The size of this mass is 1Km high. It is generally one massive Solar Power Energy mast.

How does it work?
The sun's light has very little to do with this new building. It is the actual heat radiation from the Sun. The building is layered in 200 "skirts" which lift while the heat expands the coils beneath. The resultant action turns the turbines, causing electricity to be produced.

What about at night?
This is probably the best part. During the day, whilst the heat radiation is beaming on the ground, it gathers in it. Then at night, it releases slowly. The solar power tower collects or re-radiates the energy during the abscence of the sun.


Is this clever or what? I read an articl on this in the Focus mag.

It's about time somebody started implementing some massive alternative sources of energy! Problem with that in big cities is the fact that you described it as being so big... Sounds like a great solution for homes out in the country and whatnot.

I wonder if I could get a couple for my house

(Edit: hmm, that's saying too much for my house... I should stick to those little panes that you can stick on your roof to collect solar power )


(Edit 2: One more minute, twitch, and you would have been right on 42 )

Interesting story but I don’t think that the energy producing fact is the main purpose of the building. Politics is strange and all the countries in the world that have the money will try to out do the others and sky scrapers seem to be the trend for getting attention.

They call them land marks but they are really death traps. With more and more of these monstrous buildings popping up all over the world, terrorists do not need WMD to kill mass amount of people. Sad but true 9/11 should be a reminder.

Nice idea! Though if it had intended --and I'm not assuming it is, I'm just stating a fact-- to be ranked above the twin towers in height, it won't, because it's not a residential or commercial building.

I don't get the skirts part and the expanding coils part. Could you explain?

Herbert, I don't think those would be for personal use... I think it'd support a whole city when it's built.

Coal, unforunely, prduces more power than Solar. Thaats why its gonna get used until we can find cheapen the alturnate.

It is a gread idea, but it is just not very practical. it would take 20 of these towers to equal one wind plant.

I didn't get a chance to read the whole article completely, therefore I cannot expand on the "skirt" idea.

I used the classification of the height against the Twin Towers as an example to show better the treue height of such a buidling.

As well as being high, it is also pretty thick and it only apeared to have one purpose, produce electricity.

Now, there must be an extremely feasable reason for the power output of such a station. It must be more than a nuclear power plant, or otherwise it wont get accepted. It is to my belief, that the designers of the station took everything into account.

The station is set to be built in the Outback of Australia, and some land has already been purchased for it.

I wish I had baught the magazine in which I saw it. The name of the mag is "Focus".

interesting...
...anyway if you want to know more about solar power:
http://www.fsec.ucf.edu/ed/sw/tofc.htm - try this page
and very much info can be found here:
http://www.eere.energy.gov/solar/educational_resources.html

Thats realy cool. Im all for new engergy sourses. I wonder how much energy it will produce. Does it just power the building or the buildings around it too? I hope they do dont incounter any trouble building it because it must be realy exspensive.

I know, I was joking

As for terrorists, yep, those towers would be a target if they'd take out electricity for an entire city, but the way it sounds, they would need a lot of towers for a city. So taking down just 1 wouldn't do a heck of a lot anyway if there's a couple dozen nearby.