2625ft solar tower!

This is really neat, and you can't get much more simple in terms of design.

www.treehugger.com/files/2011/07/enviromission-arizona-solar-tower-twice-size-empire-state-building-200-megawatts.php

[video=youtube;pTkmTsKLRq0]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTkmTsKLRq0&feature=player_embedded[/video]

That is amazing and cool. The profit margin will determine if it's implemented or scrapped. Other projects of equal and greater potential have been thrown away or moth-balled because they didn't meet the required 20% return potential. Investors only put money into what will bring huge returns. In order for anything to be sold to investors, politicians need to be re-purposed into salesmen. Then, at least, the project would be started and we'd know if it would work or not. After that it would all depend on whether there's a sustainable profit margin that investors will accept. Sounds like the Ferengii are driving our bus.

Very cool stuff, how come I've never seen this kind of design before? Am I just out of the loop?

I'd hate to be the one having to clean the bird-poop out of that chimney...

But I'll bet there are guys that's line up for the job.

The Spanish have been building something similar for a while, but a lot more complicated:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10228786-54.html

I can't believe racoons wouldn't be all over that.

I don't know. I think the spanish are using a different concept entirely, using mirrors to focus light on a boiler to make superheated steam. This design is a simpler concept of using heat to create wind, using the chimney effect. It's kind of a wind farm that uses solar energy to create the wind it needs. The idea is so obvious that I just thought there must be technical hurdles I didn't know about.

Yeah, definitely not an apples to apples comparison. I would think one hurdle would be the same for both designs - dirt on the collection surfaces. Can you imagine keeping all that clean? Particularly bird shit. Even a thin layer of dust would likely cut efficiency dramatically.

Probably not dramatically. As Wiska's says - people would line up to clean it...to have a job... But it's kind of remote where they are putting it...far off the west end... in the middle of nowhere practically...

*double post - sorry*

Abengoa already has some testing place out by Gila Bend here in AZ... not like the one linked here... I think they are testing different materials out here... it's REALLY spread out and the panels are in small clusters...