SolarReserve Formed to Commercialize Solar Power Tower Technology Using Molten Salt Storage

A new company has entered the thermal solar field.  Per their press release:

Hamilton Sundstrand, a subsidiary of United Technologies Corp. [NYSE: UTX], and US Renewables Group have formed a new entity, SolarReserve, to commercialize the concentrated solar power tower technology and corresponding molten salt storage system developed by Rocketdyne. This renewable technology will enable utility-scale solar power generation. It is designed to meet a utility's needs with a single installation capable of producing up to 500 MW of peak power.

"Due to the unique ability of the product to store the energy it captures, this system will function like a conventional hydroelectric power plant, but with several advantages. We will have the capability to store the sun's energy and release it on demand. This product is more predictable than water reserves, the supply is free and inexhaustible, and the environmental impact is essentially zero."

Lee Bailey, managing director of US Renewables Group (USRG)

The technology was originally demonstrated in conjunction with the U.S. Department of Energy at the Solar Two facility in Barstow, Calif. The unique component of the HS Rocketdyne power tower is the central receiver. This high heat flux hardware represents a unique combination of liquid rocket engine heat transfer technology and molten salt handling expertise.

From the WSJ (link only good for 7 days):

Hamilton Sundstrand's Rocketdyne segment will provide heat-resistant pumps and other equipment, as well as the expertise in handling and storing salt that has been heated to more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. . . .

According to the company, molten salt loses only about 1% of its heat during a day, making it possible to store energy for long periods of time. The salt is a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate.

From CNET:

The technology is expected to be available within three or four years. A representative said the company expects to realize revenue of more than $1 billion in the next 10 years.

Hamilton Standard recently to receive two contracts from DOE to help develop this process.  Under one contract Hamilton Sundstrand will validate the manufacturability of a large molten salt receiver panel and confirm its operation in prototypic solar flux to reduce the cost of CSP power tower technology through economies of scale. DOE will provide up to $320,000 of the $400,000 project.

In the second project it will design, build, and test a long-shafted, molten salt pump that will enable large scale thermal storage system of commercial-scale CSP parabolic trough plants. DOE will provide up to $362,000 of this $452,000 project.

A brief explanation of solar power tower technology, see earlier post:

Solar power towers consist of a large field of sun-tracking mirrors, called heliostats, which focus solar energy on a receiver atop a centrally located tower. The energy, coming from the sun rays, concentrated at one point (the tower in the middle), produces temperatures of approx. 550°C to 1500°C. The gained thermal energy can be used for heating water or molten salt, which saves the energy for later use.
Heated water is converted to steam, which is used to drive the turbine-generator converting the thermal energy into electricity.

Several parabolic trough power plants under development in Spain plan to use molten salt energy storage.

A 400 MW solar tower project, based on LUZ II technology, which uses water rather than salt for energy storage, was announced in November.

Thermal solar is currently the lowest cost solar technology, $0.08-$0.14 per kWh, for producing solar power and it is good to see another player, with hopefully some new technology, enter the field.

Comments

[Lad]

It's great to see investments in a clean form of energy and gives me hope that someone in government knows to use tax funding for something other than indirectly paying lobbyists.

I believe the next two years will set our country on a course to replace fossil fuel power generation with the only generation and storage method that makes sense, electricity generation by solar heat and light energy. Couple this generation delivery system with various storage devices such as flywheels, water reservoirs, molten salts, etc. and Li Ion battery BEVs and you are looking at our future. Let's get on with it!

[DaveMart]

At projected sales of $1bn over the next ten years they certainly can't be accused of over-hyping the technology!
What they essentially seem to be saying is that is will be very much a bit-player, with no substantial impact on energy production in this time period.
Disappointing.

[Cyril R.]

DaveMart, I believe point-focus systems such as these Power Towers will be very competitive in the future. Projected raw generation costs are as low as 4-5 cents per kWh. However, right now they are rather expensive. They should be seen as a medium term development, otherwise you will be disappointed indeed I think.

Most line-focus designs right now have an edge when it comes to cost, especially the newly developed CLFR. There I go again, starting to sound like a solar thermal advocate :). Comercially, Solel is pretty far along with their improved troughs and receivers, as they have more field proof of their systems. Solar thermal has gained a lot of traction now that prices are very close to NG generation, or even lower in some cases already. That's relevant because solar thermal competes with NG very strongly especially in the SW. Even more true now that some storage options are better developed.

Once these new designs are delivering power to the consumer as predicted, including reasonable amounts of storage, I think we'll see investors jumping on them like flies on cake. They'll probably be a bit cautious until that happens though.

[GreyFlcn]

Regarding cost.

Dispatchibility and reliability are rather important.

If you can make a product which is as reliable as hydroelectric, but with far more potential, then there's bound to be a niche for it.

Just consider all the lengths you would otherwise have to go to get significant capacity for a baseload renewable.

_

Geothermal is great, but you can't get it everywhere, and there's not enough.

Solar is availibile pretty much everywhere, and there's way more than enough.
http://greyfalcon.net/greenenergy.png

[bigTom]

I would think scaleup beyond a couple of demonstration plants will be slow. Most investors will want to see a proven track record, i.e. follow a plant for a number of years operation to verify that similar projects will indeed be a good return on investment. I suspect until we see several years of low operational expense we won't see too many of these. This view is consistient with the rather low estimate of first decade market scale.

The only way to go beyond a long demonstration period before widespread adoption, would be guarantees to investors -or such a large advantage over NG that a substantial risk is deemed acceptable.

[Roger Brown]

Thermal solar is currently the lowest cost solar technology, $0.08-$0.14 per kWh, for producing solar power and it is good to see another player, with hopefully some new technology, enter the field.

You cannot really quote costs for a technology that has not delivered a new plant in a decade and a half. The new Solel (they operate the Mojave desert plants) facility being build in Spain has an announced cost $7000/kw and $0.31/kWh. I will believe in the low costs you quote when one of the new players you have mentioned brings a plant on line and starts selling electricity withoug subsidies at the kind prices you mention.

[Tom Konrad]

While solar power tower technology is less advanced than parabolic trough, the models we have project that once the technology is developed, towers will work best at about half the optimal scale of parabolic trough technology (200 MW vs 400MW), and have the potential of a lower cost per kWh. (Not sure how it compares to Ausra's CLFR technology, which was not included the studies because CLFR is so new.)

Sure, solar power towers are still a research project, but they're a research project that is very much worth pursuing.

The numbers above are from this NREL study:
http://www.nrel.gov/csp/pdfs/34440.pdf

[GreyFlcn]

==You cannot really quote costs for a technology that has not delivered a new plant in a decade and a half.==

Same could be said for Nuclear or Coal power.

[Charles Barton]

We are getting a bad case of solar fever. People are quoting market good market prices for ST, the word is that sunlight is free, and will always be there, and it is very bad form to question. It is a love affair, and people in love don't question the value of the one that they live. It will only be after a night of celebration that they wakeup and discover that she has a wart on her nose. Or that solar costs a great deal more than figures that are being bandied about. $.31 Per KWh? Interesting. $7000 per KW, why that is more than nuclear. Interesting.

[Cyril R.]

Geothermal is great, but you can't get it everywhere, and there's not enough.

Depends on how it's defined. The average 'sustainable' heat rate at the surface is less than 0.1 Watt per square meter. But if geothermal is viewed as non-renewable, as in, a clean but finite power source to help us get through this century, then things get a lot more interesting, because we can drain the heat buildup of millions of years in a very short time. And good geothermal concentrations are fairly well distributed over the world. I think geothermal is a potent transitional power source.

[Cyril R.]

Don't be trolls Roger and Charles. Using the worst figures you could find huh? You should roughly halve that cost for troughs.

Solar thermal has yet to benefit from scale-up and learning, as Sargent and Lundy have concluded.

These are tiny pilot projects, built for research and learning not for commercial power generation. They do not accurately reflect real costs of a commercial system.

Ausra has already built it's array in the coal reheater project for less than $500/KW, yes those are real costs and array costs are the biggest component in solar thermal system costs. That was just 40MW. You go build a 40MW nuke and see what the electricity costs!

Insulation is Spain isn't anywhere close to good Mojave locations either.

And anyway you can play with the financials themselves to be either positive or negative about the cost, depending on what kind of troll you really are. You can see an example of that here, under levelized cost.

[Nucbuddy]

Cyril R. write: Insulation [in] Spain

The word is insolation. Sol, as in solar.

[Nucbuddy]

GreyFlcn wrote: Nuclear [has not delivered a new plant in a decade and a half].

What makes you think that?
world-nuclear.org/info/inf81.html

It looks like -- in South Korea alone -- these 11 reactor units are new, in the last 15 years:

• Yonggwang 3
• Yonggwang 4
• Wolsong 2
• Wolsong 3
• Wolsong 4
• Ulchin 3
• Ulchin 4
• Yonggwang 5
• Yonggwang 6
• Ulchin 5
• Ulchin 6

[DaveMart]

Cyril, accusations of trolling are both unnecessary and unwarranted.
Both Charles and Roger are valuable contributors to this blog, and deserve better than this sort of treatment.
Debate is impossible if it does not use the normal courtesies of discussion, and I am a bit disappointed that you should choose not to on this occasion.
A lot of these figures are pretty much pick and mix anyway, with umpteen subsidies and so-on influencing prices in ways which are difficult to fully account for, for instance waivers against catastrophic accidents in the nuclear industry, emissions in the coal industry and mandatory requirements for things like wind power, or at least renewables.
So perhaps we can just tolerate each other a little on these issues?
Regards,

[DaveMart]

Greyfalcon said:
'Geothermal is great, but you can't get it everywhere, and there's not enough.'

That sounds as though you are thinking of conventional geothermal.
A recent report from MIT shows that using hot dry rock technology and well-understood drilling techniques then the resource is far, far bigger - in the western states relatively accessible, and ultimately available throughout the US.
Cost are a bit uncertain, particularly relative to other sources, but geothermal is available 24/7 without storage, a great advantage.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=517E9954-E7F2-99DF-36C206BCA2D4E3C5&sc=I100322
The amount of money that MIT reckons the industry needs to develop is relatively small.
In any case, with the new government in Australia it looks as though efforts will be made to develop the technology:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/hot-rock-power-the-way-ahead/2007/04/11/1175971183212.html
I'm a bit worried about the costs, but it does sound like a very hopeful technology.

[DaveMart]

There is an interesting discussion of storing steam vs molten salt here:
http://www.ecoworld.com/blog/2007/12/17/solar-thermal-storage/
Ausra's technology sounds a bit difficult, it will be fascinating to see how they do.
Presumably they plan multiple presurised containers.
Molten salt sounds the easier option.

[Zed]

Amusing. Comparing the cost per watt of a sub-scale prototype solar plant to the cost per watt of nuclear plant number 560 (or whatever it is).

Nuclear power has seen perhaps $1,000,000,000,000 in total investment over the last 50 years, to pick a round number.

Solar thermal has seen, perhaps, 1/1000 th of that?

Let's compare costs after there have been one trillion dollars worth of solar thermal plants built.

[Cyril R.]

Dave, I'm a bit disappointed myself in people who take an unrepresentative case and then jump to conclusions based on that. If you're asking me to tolerate such vastly uncomplete (and thus, deceiving) analysis then I must disappoint you again. Deception is not a positive contribution at all and in this case it clearly isn't unintentionally as Charles and Roger are not stupid.

[DaveMart]

Cyril, I can't see what you hope to gain be changing from debate to name-calling - even assuming that you are correct then you are unlikely to further the point you are seeking to make.
A lot of folk here are probably in the same position as myself, and without engineering training, so our abilities to analyse the data is necessarily limited - although I should point out that even engineers have been known to drop a decimal place or two.
I have also seen reports from people at the top of their fields, who fundamentally disagree by at least as much as the discrepancy between the figures you like and those the other guys think are reasonable.
IOW, even if you are correct, that is no way to argue it.
It would be great and very informative if you could show what you don't like and why, without getting embroiled in personalities.
Dunno if you have heard of this, but in the British Houses of Parliament the two front benches have been placed far enough apart so that if the debate got heated, they couldn't skewer each other with their swords!
You also cannot accuse the opposition of lying - hence phrases like 'you are being economical with the truth!'
Hop you hit form again before long - you have a lot to contribute.

[Charles Barton]

Cyril R. To a certain extent I play Devil's advocate here. I hapen to be a believer in the notion that there is no truth without criticism. I am not so much trying to rain on the solar parade as pointing to the sky and asking, is that rain I feel falling.

Solar advocates tend to act like true believers, They tend to take the best possible speculative case, and assign it the status of apodictic fact. Yoy, Cryil, tend to assume a lot, and get annoyed with people who do not share your assumptions.

We both want the same thing, an assured future of abundant energy. We have different views about how that is going to happen. Right now the advocates of Solar power are claiming that they can deliver a whole lot for virtually nothing. I can remimber when it was claimed that with nuclear power, electricvity would be so cheap that it would not have to be meatered. At the moment solar advocates sound a whole lot like that. I know you are too in love right now to understand. Sanity will probably return in time.

[Roger Brown]

I want to respond to several negative comments made about my previous post, but first let me say that I am actually a fan of CSP technology. I was quite disappointed when I read the announced price for the new Solel plant in Spain. I quoted this number because Solel is the only company in the world with a track record of operating 100MW+ CSP installations. I certainly hope costs will come down. I like CSP technology because sensible heat storage for such systems seems to be one of the better options for making renewable energy dispatchable within some limits. Thermal storage seem relatively cheap, efficient, and the same piece of electric generating equipment can be used for actively collected or stored energy.

My statement that no new plants had been built in a decade and a half was actually a poor way of expressing my meaning. My point is that the Mojave desert plants are the only large scale CSP plants ever built and they were heavily subsidized. Lots of commercial coal and nuclear plants have been built and are continuing to be built outside of the U.S. The costs of building and operating these plants are well established. The same cannot be said for CSP technology. I certainly wish this technology well, but wishes do not always come true.

[Ken]

To my mind it's the storage that's the most interesting part of this as it won't be confined to this particular style of solar thermal. Ausra's storage proposal appears to be aimed at smoothing the day/night cycle, but not coping with multiple cloudy days, so this may well end up in their systems as well.
I see solar as a technology with enormous potential, that may not be getting there as fast as people want, however the developments that in the pipeline on top of a solid trend of ever lowering costs means it's not something to simply dismiss as unable to cut it. Whilst it's always difficult to make accurate projections of future costs, it's a mistake to take current prices and assume a decade from now that they won't have changed significantly. Solar has a good track record in this regard.
What I particularly like about solar thermal is it's relative simplicity. It's something that can be introduced in many developing countries, and be done by local companies. Whilst the immediate economic benefits to developed nations of exporting high tech systems around the world may be missed out on, the benefits of nations standing on their own feet, and doing so without adding hugely to climate change or to nuclear proliferation will flow on. That no part of solar thermal needs to be held back or restricted due to security concerns is a big advantage to my mind.
As for subsidies, are any energy technologies unsubsidized? We need to have a good idea what the real costs are, including regulatory and security costs, and some very significant ones are still being heavily deferred to future generations. Subsidies can see important technologies get a head start. Sure, they need to be carefully assessed and monitored to see that they are effective, and withdrawn as companies can do the job on their own, but I believe they have a very important place. Otherwise the financial power of existing, but not necessarily benign, industries can see clean and sustainable competition stopped from being able to expand to where they play a significant role.

[steve]

A couple of corrections regarding some of the posts on here. First the solar-thermal plants in the Mojave were not built or operated by Solel. They use Solel troughs but are operated by separate companies. Another correction is there has recently been a large solar-thermal plant built, using the Solel system, just outside of Las Vegas.
I do agree with some of the comments on here regarding that some people have almost a one track mind when it comes to solar. I work in the solar-thermal field but feel it would be foolish to try and power the United States with just solar or any single energy source. I do feel we need to start building some of these projects so we can figure out what works and how we can make it better. First a comment about Ausra, I feel they may very well be on the right track but I agree they have to produce, when it comes to the claims they make about costs. You have to remember they are trying to sell a product but have not proven a thing yet.
As for solar cost, I am not sure about the cost of 34 cents a KW in Spain but the last contract written in the US was about half that. Still too much but you have to understand banks are not going to lend the money to build these things unless they are damn sure they will get their money back.
The ultimate goal is to build these things without the need for subsidies or “special contracts” but for now it is unrealistic. I really see this as more of an investment in the future. I really don’t believe solar will ever be as cheap as coal if we continue to produce coal plants the way we do now. I do believe that costs will come down for solar thermal and it is great to see all the new ideas.
One of the things I think I like the most about the solar tower design is that it seems to be able to reach higher temperatures than the trough design. With higher temperatures you generally get better efficiency. It also seems like it may be cheaper and offer less heat loss because the heating fluid (water, HTF or salt) does not have to be piped all over the field. Another advantage it looks like it would be better able to track the sun as it moves further to the south in the winter. The present trough systems are fixed for the north south movement of the sun. They basically pick a point and become less efficient at collecting heat as the sun moves towards the south in the winter.

[DaveMart]

The plants in Spain are being built, 3 50MW for $890m
http://www.export.gov.il/Eng/_Articles/Article.asp?CategoryID=354&ArticleID=4513
That works out at around $6 a peak watt installed, or $24 for an energy flow of 1 watt with an efficiency of 0.25
That's $2.40 per kilowatt of capacity.
Paid over ten years that would be 0.24 kilowatt with no allowance for interest, maintenance and so on.
On the levelised basis Cyril prefers that is just over $0.20kwh
That still does not allow anything for maintenance and so on, but since the Spanish government are paying a guaranteed $0.30kwh for the next 25 years, and upgrading for inflation, it sounds like pretty good business to me, although far from cheap for the consumer.

[DaveMart]

BTW, that is for payback over 25years - after that your power should be free bar maintenance.

[Mike]

Solel's technology was used on the troughs for plant in Spain but was built and is otherwise operated by a consortium of several companies including Solar Millenium.

http://www.flagsol.com/andasol_project_RD.htm

It has around 7 hours of storage to help it cover the late evening peak of electric use in Spain...they eat dinner at around 11pm.

This is Nevada Solar One:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One

Just completed this year.

Charles,
Your observations of your role here are a little self-serving; I don't know if you're the truth-teller that you are claiming to be when it comes to solar or other renewables. You are advocate of nuclear who seems pissed off that solar doesn't have as many downsides as nuclear. Yes it does have downsides that people who are more positive than you on it will acknowledge but not in a climate where nuclear (or other power source) true believers are saying "you're not perfect" at every turn.

None or our energy options is perfect except that some seem to have more upsides than downsides or simply be less complex and, in which there are more opportunities.

Zed,
That is a very good point re: contrast in investment between solar thermal vs. nuclear...I'm wondering if worldwide a billion dollars has been invested in CSP/solar thermal yet...something on that order over a period of 25 years.

CSP with storage is a very promising technology, should be pursued aggressively. We would be very shortsighted not to build out plants with current or near-term technology and do more and R&D to reduce costs.

[steve]

Dave as to your comment about maintenance, there is quite a lot of it in a solar plant. Basically the power block part of the plant does not look a lot different than any other type of steam plant. It also has maintenance requirements very much like a conventional plant also, although coal plants will have more maintenance in the power block simply because of the abrasiveness of coal. The solar field part tends to have a fair amount of breakage. The mirrors occasionally break and the tubes can also. Because of their size, solar plants require more workers than a gas plant too. In reality the cost of labor, for most any power plant, is a pretty small part of the overall cost

[Nucbuddy]

Mike,

Solar is diffuse. What are you planning on doing to rectify that problem?

[Mike]

nucbuddy,
To start, "rectify" implies that there is a perfect solution, which I think there isn't any. If there were a "perfect" energy source we would have already developed the hell out of it, given our demand for energy.

But continuing to your concern...we need capture devices/power plants with a larger footprint or cross-section with most renewables including solar than with fossil fuels or nuclear. The power density of the sun, wind is not super strong...otherwise we and other lifeforms would have fried or blown away long ago. This means more investment in things like extensive collector fields, which per square foot are not super expensive. Luckily there are areas on earth where solar is strong enough to semi-fry most lifeforms, deserts, where in a small fraction of the land area we can put these CSP plants without interfering with too many other organisms. Depending on which fraction of energy demand you want to fill, we are still talking about less than 2% of the world's deserts.

Building a substantial CSP infrastructure rapidly will take both evolutionary changes in the technology and some subsidy or incentives.

Is that perfect? No. Are any of our options perfect? No. Will this one work?...yup!

[Charles Barton]

Charles,
Your observations of your role here are a little self-serving; I don't know if you're the truth-teller that you are claiming to be when it comes to solar or other renewables. You are advocate of nuclear who seems pissed off that solar doesn't have as many downsides as nuclear. Yes it does have downsides that people who are more positive than you on it will acknowledge but not in a climate where nuclear (or other power source) true believers are saying "you're not perfect" at every turn.

None or our energy options is perfect except that some seem to have more upsides than downsides or simply be less complex and, in which there are more opportunities. - Mike

Mike, Solar has one enormous downside that you chose to ignore. The sun does not shine at night. Nuclear power does not have to be shut down when the sun sets. Various proposals have been made for to rectify the down side of solar, but we lack the evidence of experience that would show us that this can be done at a reasonable cost. Right now we have a love affair with solar power, and various unproven claims about it circulate freely here.

It is no doubt easier for you to doubt my truthfulness than to acknowledge what I am saying, and confront the doubts that hearing me would entail.

I believe that we need to have a viable plan for a post-carbon energy future. So far the advocates of solar power have a plan in which there are many gaps. There are many areas of research left to cover before we have any certainty that solar power can function as base or even peak power even within the limited confines of the American Southwest.

Compared to the very real downsides of solar power, the downsides of nuclear power are quite trivial.

[Roger Brown]

Solar has one enormous downside that you chose to ignore. The sun does not shine at night.

I am a lot more concerned about solar insolation variation on longer times scales than I am about the day/night variations. Thermal heat storage in molten salts is a demonstrated technology. However, the proposals I have seen for using this technology do not propose storage times much longer than 24 hours. The energy density is relatively low compared to fossil fuels. If energy needs to be stored for weeks or months costs will go up enormously.

The most obvious solar variation to be worried about is the Summer/Winter variation. In the long run even coal supplies are going to decline. Many renewable energy advocates point out that wind energy flux is greatest in the winter and so complements solar energy. However, if the best solar and wind locations are far apart then an expensive super grid would have to be built to effectively exploit this complementarity.

[Charles Barton]

Roger, It would be nice to see a few demonstration facilities built that use the various proposed storage technologies. Until someone shows in practice that molten salt, batteries, or compressed air in caves really can produce massive amounts of overnight power at prices that are truly competitive with reactors, advocates of solar power are running on dreams.

Wind power may not help the case of solar power. In order to provide a wind powered over night base, the grid managers will not be able to count on more than 10% of the installed generating capacity. It might well require a million installed wind generators to produce overnight base power for the United States. Think in terms of five trillion dollars for the the wind generators installed on 200 foot towers, and trillions more for the grid collection system. And this will give you reliable power perhaps 95% of the time. So 18 nights a year we will still be without power.

[Roger Brown]

Charles

Molten salt storage was demonstrated during the Solar Two Power Tower project coordinated by Sandia National Labs. However, I would agree that this was a technical demonstration and and not a commercial demonstration.

I am skeptical about the wind/solar super grid myself, but I have seen better numbers quoted for wind reliability if a large number of widely dispersed high quality wind locations are linked together at a central point. A recent Standford study, referenced in an earlier story on this blog, claims that 30% or more of such linked wind farm system could count as base load power. Of course 12 to 24 hours worth of energy storage could also improve the performance of wind power. Unfortunately super grids and storage cost money and will degrade the economics of wind energy.

[Charles Barton]

Roger, If you assume that 30% of 10+ the wind farms in the super wind grid system can be counted on to produce wind power a with base load reliability, and that the average output of each of those farms is 1/3 of rated capacity, you will come up with a base load capacity of about 10% of name plate rated generating capacity. Thus it will take the installation of 10 2.5 MW generators to give you 2.5 MW of base load power. And remember that your 10 wind generator will not always give you power. Occasionally wind will die away to nothing across the entire system. If this happens at night, the entire system has to go to emergency backup. Emergency back ups cost money too.

[Mike]

Charles,
Molten salt storage is a proven alternative. In the 1980's Solar Two operated for 7 days continuously day and night on molten salt storage. This was a demonstration plant that was not further developed for mostly political reasons. Solar thermal has until recently only received drips and drabs of funding due to a number of factors.

The US government, caught as it is between so many competing interest groups, has orphaned the program a couple times so they haven't continued to press for improvements and to further demonstrate that this can work or find private partners to carry the flag. Sandia has some capabilities in this area but has not been fully utilized by the DOE or by private partners.

The same cannot be said about nuclear which has been the recipient of perhaps hundreds of billions of research dollars. One of the most favored science projects of the government for many years.

So, give solar thermal a fraction of that attention either from public or private funds over a period of time and you're going to have cheaper solar that produces around the clock without most of the risks and complexity of nukes.

[Clee]

Mike wrote:
In the 1980's Solar Two operated for 7 days continuously day and night on molten salt storage.

Sounds nice. Can you provide me a URL for that? I was under the impression that they were shooting for 6 hours storage, which is not enough to run continuously overnight.

[Charles Barton]

In the 1980's Solar Two operated for 7 days continuously day and night on molten salt storage. - Mike

Mike I would have little reason to doubt that this is possible. It is certainly possible as an experiment. It would, however take a great deal more information to judge if the experiment demonstrated that energy storage with molten salt was economically feisable in power production.

[Nucbuddy]

Mike wrote: Solar thermal has until recently only received drips and drabs of funding
[...]
The same cannot be said about nuclear which has been the recipient of perhaps hundreds of billions of research dollars.

Both solar and nuclear have received billions of dollars in R&D funding, Mike. However, only nuclear has provided a return on the investment.
world-nuclear.org/info/inf68.html

US Department of Energy figures show that over the 40 years to 1993 US expenditure on nuclear R&D totalled $60 billion, resulting in it supplying 20% of the electricity, whereas solar & geothermal received $22 billion and supplied only 3% of the power. More recent figures show the renewables total in the DOE R&D budget as $356 million in FY2000 and $375 million in FY2001, of which wind got $33 and $40 million respectively.

A 2002 Cato Institute report showed that in the previous 20 years renewable technologies received $24.2 billion in US federal R&D expenditure, compared with $20.1 billion for nuclear and $15.5 for coal (adjusted 1996 dollars). The result of this was minimal electricity contribution from non hydro renewables, and 20% and 50% respectively contribution from nuclear and coal.

A 2006 study from Management Information Services on The US Energy Subsidy Scorecard showed that total federal incentives (of which R&D expenditure is only a part) from 1950 to 2003 totalled $63 billion for nuclear power, $111 billion for renewables, $81 billion for coal and $87 billion for natural gas (2003 dollars), lining this up against the resultant contribution to US energy.

Focusing on R&D alone over 1994-2003, the study showed coal got $3.9 billion and nuclear $1.6 billion - both commensurate with their contribution to US electricity, while renewables other than hydro received $3.7 billion - vastly more than their foreseeable contribution.

Besides that, all wind and solar installation worldwide are latently subsidized by cheaper power sources such as hydro, coal, gas, nuclear, and diesel. If those cheaper power sources were taken away, the per-kWh costs of wind and solar would skyrocket, and we would find ourselves living in a medieval world -- in every sense of the meaning of the word medieval, including feudal economics, torture in dungeons, high violent-crime- and murder- rates, conservative church-based morality control, outlawing of science, a return of alchemy, short lifespans, and disease and death everywhere. There would be no such thing as "human rights", much less a chance of "animal rights".

[Charles Barton]

US Department of Energy figures show that over the 40 years to 1993 US expenditure on nuclear R&D totalled $60 billion, resulting in it supplying 20% of the electricity - Nucbuddy

Nucbuddy in fact only a very small fraction of that 60 billion dollars went to civilian reactor research. The AEC and the later department of energy spent money on military research, on the design and production of nuclear weapons, R&D on the production of PU239 for nuclear weapons, R&D on the production of tritium for nuclear weapons, R&D on the enrichment of U235 for atomic weapons, R&D on materials that were used in military reactors, R&D on the development of the atomic submarine, R&D on the design of portable reactors for the military, research on the effects of radiation and radioactive substances on living organism, on the medical use of radiation and radioactive materials, research on the effects of nuclear weapons on civilian populations, research on civil defense programs, research on physics research projects including accelerators, and nuclear fusion experiments, research on carbon14, research on the carbon cycle, research on cosmic rays, research on radioisotopes in the soil, in rock, in natural gas, in water, research on reactor accidents and on reactor safety. In the early 1970's when I briefly worked at ORNL one of the major centers of reactor research. The total ORNL budget was only $100 million per year, and not more than 10% of that budget went to reactor research. ORNL was the largest national lab, and the lab most deeply involved in reactor research. Most of the reactors built and operated at ORNL were not part of a civilian power reactor programs. The ORNL reactor research budget was far less after the period of 1950 to 1970. The total Lab budget for that 20 year period could not have exceeded $1.5 billion, of which the total reactor budget was much less than half. ORNL spending on reactor research declined dramatically from 1970 onward. The ORNL's most successful reactor experiment during the 1960's was paid for by a $4 million grant from the AEC. It is utterly and completely absurd to claim that $63 Billion was spent on nuclear power research from between 1950 and 2003 by the Department of Energy. People who make this claim simply don't know what they are talking about.

[Cyril R.]

OK you're right, namecalling gets us nowhere. But please, don't jumpt to conclusions based on a single reference case anymore. One could probably odd an experimental nuclear research project out that costs even more than this solar thermal project but that would be a silly notion.

Besides that, all wind and solar installation worldwide are latently subsidized by cheaper power sources such as hydro, coal, gas, nuclear, and diesel. If those cheaper power sources were taken away, the per-kWh costs of wind and solar would skyrocket, and we would find ourselves living in a medieval world

Actually that is true for nuclear baseload as well; it requires peaking plants, often gas turbines, to comply with the grid demand. If these cheaper peakers were taken away, the per-kWh cost of nuclear power would almost double (about 50-60% CF nukes) - that is, in a hypothetical grid powered 100% by nuclear power, as a thought experiment only so don't quote me on being unrealistic. With solar and especially wind the effect is much worse as they are also intermittent.

What's so interesting about Ausra's proposal is that it doesn't require peakers. With sufficient storage, it is almost inherently load following, and the only emergency backup it then needs is a small amount of natural gas burned in simple, cheap industrial heaters, and in the future perhaps biogas would be used. That way, the backup is build-in for a small extra investment in capital, compared to the more expensive gas turbines that would be needed to substitute a baseload nuke. Combined cycles are more efficient but also much more expensive and it would be hard to justify them financially if the solar fraction is very high (e.g. >90%), unless the price of natural gas skyrockets, but then biogas could be used as a price hedge.

Thermal storage is probably best for dealing with daily variations. In good Mojave locations the emergency heaters shouldn't be needed more than 5% of the time or so. Just during the rare long lasting cloud or dust storm events. There would be 95% solar fraction, perhaps even more on average, which I think is excellent. That little bit of NG burned however would make the plants truly dispatchable and reliable even during longer climatic irregularities.

I'd like to point out that the long term levelised cost target for the CLFR is about 2-3 cents per kWh which I think is very impressive.

While I am a great advocate of nuclear fission, there is something fishy about the financials of some of the new plants being proposed/built in the US. They are getting too much subsidies and that really scares the heck out of me.

What also bothers me is that nuclear power is often used as a political playing card, especially internationally. Nuclear power is a good way of making electricity and it should be advertised as such.

Also, the plants in North Korea are not a very good financial reference case, for evident reasons.

I share no particular affection towards either solar thermal or nuclear fission. In fact I think both are great strategical routes and we'll get where we want to faster if we just stopped pitting one against the other. Global warming is far more serious don't you think?

[Cyril R.]

There a few other considerations. One is that fission received large amounts of subsidies in the beginning years which is a serious advantage over other alternative energies. Another is the insurance by the govt, eg Price-Anderson. There are others, I've actually found the Wikipedia article on it to be fairly objective:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants

[DaveMart]

Cyril said:
'Global warming is far more serious don't you think?'
Actually, it is unclear whether the hydrocarbon resources that the IPCC used to generate their figures on Global warming actually exist, at least in a form which is likely to be mined:
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/2697
I have long been unhappy with the IPCC approach and their somewhat cavalier dismissal of criticisms - of course, that doesn't mean that they are wrong about GW, but things like their failure to make public the basis of the models they use cause unnecessary difficulties in evaluation.
At minimum, it seems that hydrocarbon exploitable resource figures are not well maintained, and could do with serious study - their failure to respond when questioned on this is in my view unprofessional.
So as regards man made GW prospects, I am left with a definite maybe!
That does not mean we are out of the woods, as real resource limitations are perhaps more troublesome than the need to restrict carbon emissions, and I am also now persuaded by discussion on the 'Oil Drum' that oil has probably peaked and natural gas is not far behind.
The economic consequences of this are serious, especially in the implications of things like fertiliser costs for the poor.
The ability to use gas to top up for renewables would also be more limited - wind in particular due to it's highly intermittent nature relies on cheap back-up.

[Nucbuddy]

Cyril R. wrote: nuclear baseload [...] requires peaking plants

Nuclear does not require peaking plants. The notion that any baseload technology could require peaking plants is absurd. If it were economical, nukes could store their energy in myriad ways (including manufacturing, synthetically, methane or petroleum), and thus run round the clock while also providing boosted "peaking" power. Saturating grids with nukes would also make them far cheaper than they have ever been, making it even more absurd to contemplate a need to store their energy -- their energy is already stored in uranium and thorium, so why store it again?

Besides that, over time, humans are becoming progressively less enslaved by solar-time (more and more often they telecommute and commit virtual presence anywhere in the world at any "time of day"; solar-time is a dying bigotry), and the amounts of power they use are becoming progressively more detached from heating- and cooling- needs. The notion that any power grid a century from now would show anything other than a round-the-clock flatline in demand is absurd.

As "time of day" bigotries continue to recede, the world's powergrids continue toward terminal flatlines.

[DaveMart]

Nucbuddy,
Dunno what happens in your neck of the woods, but here in the UK daytime summer use can run as low as 20GW, and peak winter demand is around 75GW.
Most of it goes on heating and cooling, as well as industrial processes.
All the time the winter is cooler than the summer, we are going to continue to have variability here!

[Nucbuddy]

DaveMart wrote: All the time the winter is cooler than the summer, we are going to continue to have variability

No, you will not continue to have variability. Power demand grows exponentially, while heating and cooling demand do not.

[Cyril R.]

The notion that any baseload technology could require peaking plants is absurd.

No it's not. Logic says so. Simple maths. Aggregate (day/night plus seasonal ie over the entire year) demand capacity factor is usually 50-60 percent. Thus, providing 95% capacity factor will not serve complete grid needs -> needs supplementation elsewhere. Typical, bold statements but no reference or data to back it up. That's what I was talking about earlier when I said nuclear propaganda.

If it were economical, nukes could store their energy in myriad ways

Clearly it mustn't be economical then, considering it's not being done anywhere in the world. It's more economical to use NG peakers as you pointed out early. Therefore, the point you made also applies to nuclear fission baseload: that is is latently subsidized by cheaper peakers.

Saturating grids with nukes would also make them far cheaper than they have ever been

No, nuclear fission in France isn't that much cheaper than in most other places. They already have to close down plants during the weekends despite exorting large amounts of baseload to other countries. If they couldn't do the latter, the average capacity factor would be significantly lower. They have quite a bit of peaking plants and also often import peaking from other EU countries just as they export baseload capacity. If they didn't export it would be very parasitic.

their energy is already stored in uranium and thorium, so why store it again?

Because there is a difference between storing it and releasing it. Nukes release full capacity almost all the time, e.g. 95% capacity factor. The aggregate demand however is usually 50-60% so simple maths tells us it is impossible to build a 100% nuclear grid without sacrificing average capacity factor to near 50-60%. This is expensive, and will not happen unless alternatives become more expensive or are exhausted.

The notion that any power grid a century from now would show anything other than a round-the-clock flatline in demand is absurd.

No, the notion that you can predict, with any credibility, what will happen a hundred years from now, THAT is absurd.

As "time of day" bigotries continue to recede, the world's powergrids continue toward terminal flatlines.

I prefer to sleep at night, thank you. Does that make me a "bigot", along with several billion other people?

[DaveMart]

Nucbuddy said:
'No, you will not continue to have variability. Power demand grows exponentially, while heating and cooling demand do not.'
Not for the last few years in the West it hasn't.
Dunno how far in the future you are imagining, but for practical purposes at the moment you have around a 4-1 difference in electrical demand for the UK, and that is the engineering reality systems have to be designed to.
It is possible to imagine that being levelised to some degree if you used a lot of electric for transport, but we don't know how to do that at the moment.
On a cold day in winter even France uses all the nuclear power it can generate, whilst in summer they have plenty spare, although the warmer climate in France compared to the UK means that requirements for air-conditioning and cooling are larger.

[Charles Barton]

Not for the last few years in the West it hasn't. - DaveMart

I am not sure that the limited expansion of power demand on the West Coast tells us anything good about the California economy. In Texas power demand is increasing, and is expected to continue increasing during the next thirty years.

[DaveMart]

Charles, that's a bit of a US perspective! I was referring to the 'West' as being Japan, Europe and the US/Oceania, not California!
I was also not trying to say that no growth had taken place in energy use since, say, 1070, just that rates haven't been at anything like that which could reasonably be described as 'exponential'.
Of course, that is not watertight, as some of the energy requirements have been displaced by goods used in the West being manufactured in China, where I accept that energy usage will grow fast for many years.
Overall though, we haven't had the degree of growth in energy usage which was projected in the 60's, when the view was that it would be ever upwards and onwards.

[DaveMart]

I accept that there has been quite a bit of growth since 1070! 'grin!'