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World's Biggest Solar Plant for Australia

cosmosmagazine.com — Australia has announced plans to build the world's biggest space-age solar power station. The plant will use high performance solar cells originally developed to power satellites. "Solar Systems has developed the capability to concentrate the sun by 500 times onto the solar cells for ultra-high power output," the company said.

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  • GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -8/+3The Wired article is better: http://digg.com/environment/Aussies_plan_to_build_World_s_Largest_Solar_Powerplant
  • TripseV, on 10/12/2007, -16/+2What a waste of money. The largest Solar Power Plant in the world just to produce enough energy for 45,000 homes. What a joke.

    Spend the money drying the coal in the LaTrobe valley or better ways to dispose of nuclear waste before trying to buy the green vote please Mr. Bracks.
    • bizkit00, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6because i want my grandkids to be able to play in the underground caves we're storing nuclear waste in, not, you know, be able to survive at the earth's surface temperature.
    • Beverman, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4That should be enough to power Mildura No problem :) And its a small price to pay for a better environment.
    • howea, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1It's a start.

      Cheap/safe Nuclear power without the long-term headache is not here yet. If they ever succeed developing some of the experimental technologies (like Thorium based reactors) Im sure they would start being built again.
    • glmory, on 10/12/2007, -4/+3We haven't had a death from any of the hundred American nuclear power plants in decades. They are quite safe.

      The waste issues are a little more serious, but not nearly as bad as they are made out to be. A couple football fields worth of storage space would last us essentially forever. While there is some risk of underground storage causing problems the chances are absurdly low if good science is used. For example think of that natural gas your stove burns. That was trapped underground for millions, if not hundreds of millions of years. Nothing we make in a reactor is harder to trap under ground than methane. We only need to trap the radioactive elements underground a fraction of that time for it to be safe.
    • chunkylimey, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3The great deal about investing in solar power is that you don't have to ship the fuel in, it just requires maintenance. Any fuel based engineering system is less efficient in the long run. Big initial investment of much cheaper energy and a better long term return. Australians are taking advantage of a huge natural resource at their disposal, sunshine. Swedes do it with water power from their mountains, Brits are doing it with wind power. If the US could just harness idiocy we could hook up everyone who votes for the GOP and America would have cheap energy for a few generations. Environmentally friendly energy doesn't have to mean your some moronic tree-hugging hippie, it makes sound economic sense but then people who back the current US administration are traitors to their own nation just as bad as the whiny Liberals they hate so much. They would rather screw their nation over with dependency on inefficient energy systems than take advantage of a huge nation with solar energy, cheap coal (it doesn't always have to be Oil), wind power and great potential for water power. It's not about some global warming agenda it's about the nation being energy independent and getting value for money. But then someone who votes for Bush and the GOP and thinks they are going to benefit financially for doing so is a moron and there are still a lot of those morons about (I hate much of the Democrats fiscal policy but at least they might actually push through something useful like a sound energy plan).
    • glmory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Any fuel based engineering system is less efficient in the long run."

      While I am a great supporter in research on alternative energy it should be pointed out that with current technology solar really isn't. We are still talking about something like three times the cost. These things do go bad, and have to be replaced too often to make much money on.

      Wind power on the other hand, if fossil fuels stay at current prices or go up, expect a lot of wind power.
    • Eccles, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Cost is 420 million A$ for a 154 MW plant. A typical nuke plant is about 900 MW. Would said nuke plant cost less than $2.4 billion? Typically they cost somewhat more, $3-$5 billion, but the solar plant's numbers may only refer to when the sun is shining, so the effective power production may be somewhat less -- it's hard to tell from the article.
    • LordLucless, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Nuclear is quite safe these days, and the pollution is easier to handle (albeit more dangerous in itself) than that of traditional power plants. It's major flaw though, is that it still relies on a depletable resource. For long-term sustainability, renewable is the way to go. And likely, the sustainable energy system will be hybrid - solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, hydro stations, each where it is most appropriate. Until we manage to get beamed solar anyway ;p
  • shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -3/+4there's also this in the works for Australia:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_towerhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_updraft_tower
    • aussiebuddha, on 10/12/2007, -5/+3shame your link doesnt work
    • BabySlapper, on 10/12/2007, -4/+0It's a shame you're too stupid to be able to figure out how to put links on separate lines.
    • griz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10If only we could harness the power of stupidity.
  • godspeed1074, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Hmmmmmm...now all they have to do is create a rain machine.
    • Wartyboskfapped, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think they have, like, the biggest underground water reserves in the world, or something.
    • Flashman, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah, we do. About 1500 miles west of this plant :P
  • NanoStuff, on 10/12/2007, -8/+2No sun, no power. That will always be the problem with solar energy, the solar part. It can only produce it for 1/3rd of the 24 hour cycle with decent results, and that's only if it's not cloudy. It couldn't possibly replace a traditional power plant. There must be a better way.
    • ricree, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This isn't an either/or proposition. Will solar completely replace all other forms of power generation? Probably not. However, it has the potential to seriously reduce our use of non renewable resources. Add in other renewable sources, such as wind, geothermal, and tidal, and we can be a long way towards living in a sustainable manner.
    • sathias, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Dude, this is Australia we are talking about. We don't exactly have a shortage of sunlight. Even so, you can get solar panels now that you can put enough on your roof that even at 4pm on an overcast winters day will be creating more power than you are using. I work with a company that produces and installs solar panels, and if you invest a few tens of thousands of dolars in a solar system (its a lot of money I know) you will end up getting cheques from the electricity company, rather than bills.
    • griz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Sathias,
      While I fully support the idea of renewables. Solar really doesn't make sense economically when it comes to powering a single house.
      If you dumped $20,000 on a solar roof and you were replacing a $100/month
      electric bill, it would still take you over 15 years to recoup the investment.
      In the northeast, you can forget about a system like this working during the winter and the number of sunny days per year would impede the rate of payback even further.
      What needs to happen is that the cost per watt needs to come down by a factor of 10 to make it worthwhile. If I could replace my roof with solar collectors for what it costs to reroof the house, then it might be worth the investment.
    • sathias, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yeah Griz, I hear what you are saying there. On a solely economic basis it is not all that attractive with how long it would take to recoup your money. However that is with what electricity prices are at the moment, if the world gets serious about reducing green-house gas emmisions and puts in place carbon taxes, those prices could go up significantly.

      However to me it's not only an economic issue, and if I had the money (and owned my own house lol) I would make the investment. I like the idea of having a house which has a neutral effect on the environment, at least in terms of electricity consumption.
    • grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@satius

      Since you are in the game:
      What sort of KW/hr can you expect per square metre on an average spring day?
      What sort of price per square metre are we looking at?
      Is it economically viable without artificially making carbon unviable (taxes)?

      If it is viable, then someone should start work on photovoltaic roof tiles, and we could really start making some difference.
  • Uberazza, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Its a step in the right direction, more research and effort that goes into this, the cheaper it will be for future generations. It makes me a proud Australian. Steve Bracks will always have my vote. It should not be about the money it should be about renewable energy, every little bit is helping. Even switching off a light you don't need to use is doing something to help.
  • glmory, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1This is really money better spent than most of what we do. A hundred billion spent on solar, wind, nuclear fusion/fission and ethanol from cellulose would save us a lot of money on mid east military.
    • almalax19, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Yea but then Bush's buddies wouldnt be making 10.4 BILLION DOLLARS PROFIT IN ONE ***** QUARTER.
  • StuvX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0It's good to see this happening, but the issue is producing solar panels takes energy as well, I think I remember seeing that a solar panel takes like 8 years of operation to get to a zero energy debt. It's good to see people mentioning nuclear power because in the short term the transition to renewable power would be best served by a nuclear power grid that is not emitting carbon. Today's reactor designs (gen IV) incorporate inherent safety systems where something like Chernobyl simply couldn't occur because the reactor would shut down. Also the nuclear waste issue isn't as bad as the greens would have you believe, ANU invented SYNROC which incorporates nuclear waste into the crystal structure of a ceramic, and then safely stored underground. People should be informed of all this progress before running scared from nuclear power; and once the government's report on the feasibility of nuclear power comes out I'm sure a public education campaign will begin. Nuclear weapons proliferation is of course another concern...
  • GnuTzu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
    The preceding has been a test of the duplicate submission handling on Digg.
    If this had been a real emergency...

    I've noticed the complaints that others have made concerning the supposedly unfair handling of duplicates on Digg. When I noticed this post, I was curious. So I added a comment to this post with a reference to the other Digg posting as a test. At the time of that comment, this posting had 18 Diggs while the other--which was many hours older--had only 15 Diggs.

    Now, this posting has 266 Diggs, and the other still has only 20. Both articles are essentially the same news, and I don't see any reason to believe that this posting was superior to the earlier one. The only difference seems to be that this was posted by one of the Top Digg Users (#6).

    I also notice that my comment was dugg down for being a line to another Digg post (currently at -5). I understand that people prefer direct links, and I'm normally one to provide them. But, I wonder how many actually considered the plight of the other poster.

    Personally, I'm fine with all this (though I have no idea how the other poster feels). I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect a little cliquishness in a social environment. I was really just trying to satisfy my curiosity about the other complaints--sort of a sociological experiment (though I'm not a sociologist).

    Anyway, I'll continue to enjoy Digg and post my opinionated little comments. I'll also continue to enjoy watching the curious little behaviors that go on here.
    • grumpyrain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"I wonder how many actually considered the plight of the other poster."

      Actually I never considered them. I do hope they pull through. It must be tough for them.
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