Canon PowerShot G10
ƒ/4
6.1 mm
1/1,600
80

The future’s so bright, I gotta wear shades
—Timbuk 3

Courtney peers into one of the heliostats of the BrightSource solar thermal facility in the Negev Desert of Israel.

Each of these flat mirrors aims the sun at a boiler tower, heating it to 1000°F to drive a steam generator, feeding electricity to the grid.

BrightSource believes that this will be the least expensive source of renewable energy and cost competitive with fossil fuels.

I just calculated that for their current projects in the U.S. alone, they will install 2 million of these mirrors… which will power 1.4 million homes… about 1.4 mirrors per home.

27 responses to “Solar Thermal Fashion”

  1. ideastoday Avatar
    ideastoday

    Should we buy stock in Windex? 😉

    Reply
  2. born1945 Avatar
    born1945

    1.4 mirrors per home?!? That’s amazing. We should be covering the Mojave Desert with these.

    Reply
  3. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    And only 2% of the Mojave is needed to supply all Californian homes.

    ideastoday: brilliant! =)

    Reply
  4. Dr DAD (Daniel A D'Auria MD) Avatar
    Dr DAD (Daniel A D’Auria MD)

    Can we bring our marshmallows and long sticks?

    Reply
  5. Dr DAD (Daniel A D'Auria MD) Avatar
    Dr DAD (Daniel A D’Auria MD)

    Or how about a new line of tanning salons? Can we call it "Quick-tan". Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

    Reply
  6. cmccolgan Avatar
    cmccolgan

    Good to know if the solar market tanks, we have a business in tanning.

    Reply
  7. Duncan Rawlinson - Duncan.co Avatar
    Duncan Rawlinson – Duncan.co

    1.4 mirrors per home?! That’s incredible! What do you personally believe "will be the least expensive source of renewable energy and cost competitive with fossil fuels." ?

    Reply
  8. kirainet Avatar
    kirainet

    that’s awesome. What is the avg cost per year of installation/maintenance of 1 mirror?

    Reply
  9. Ange Halle Avatar
    Ange Halle

    Since I heard about this (or similar) solar systems I have been so (positively) intrigued by this concept. I can’t understand why there aren’t many many more around the world. But it does seem to be catching on.
    And mirrors are so much more "fitting" for regions with intense sunlight. Many people do not realize that conventional photovoltaic cells function better in Europe than in "sunny" places.

    Reply
  10. johnskabardonis Avatar
    johnskabardonis

    great composition and execution!

    as to the subject matter, what are the mirrors made of?
    there are some materials out there that can really drop the price/complexity of such a project AND increase the serviceable lifetime

    Reply
  11. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    inexpensive flat glass mirrors I believe. Are you thinking of the nano-coatings to repel dust?

    kirainet: they claim a 35 year life with cleaning as the only maintenance. (more)

    Reply
  12. sbove Avatar
    sbove

    too bad the ultra-sonic method used in cleaning the sensor on the 5d mk II doesn’t scale to mega-mirror sizes 😉

    Reply
  13. Jim Rees Avatar
    Jim Rees

    If we can solve the transmission and storage problems then something like this holds great promise. If we can’t, well at least it takes some of the pressure off. Maybe we can work the kinks out of hydrogen.

    Does this use a traditional steam turbine? Now if we could find a good way to convert heat directly to electricity we’d really have something.

    Reply
  14. PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE Avatar
    PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

    =) Cool idea for the compo and picture first.
    And who would have thought that Solar energy would be the new way of doing artificial light in photography….

    Artificial Intelligence…Artificial Life…and now Artificial Fashion…or is it… O=)

    Reply
  15. PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE Avatar
    PhOtOnQuAnTiQuE

    How about Fashion Shows into space ; )
    Just came across this :

    Mitsubishi, IHI to Join $21 Bln Space Solar Project

    Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp. will join a 2 trillion yen ($21 billion) Japanese project intending to build a solar-power station in space by the 2030s and beam energy via microwaves to earth to supply one gigawatt of electrical power, or enough to power 294,000 homes.
    Bloomberg.com, Sept. 1, 2009

    Reply
  16. j_silla Avatar
    j_silla

    What about cooler, cloudier climate somewhere in the north?

    Reply
  17. drona Avatar
    drona

    Just returned from a brief trip to Western India (mostly Mumbai), and I was astounded at the awareness of the folks there about clean and green technology. In particular there is a mushrooming cottage industry of solar panel powered LED lights, even in homes in Mumbai. Met a few teams doing very interesting work.

    This particular project by BrightSource I believe falls under the Solar Thermal category. There are some groups that have already tried this in India — for example in this Arun project.

    Scientists are quite skeptical about Solar Thermal projects in India because of the rapid deterioration of reflectivity of panels due to rain, heat and high humidity. The task of maintaining these panels and hence reliable power will be monumental…

    Reflective Solar Thermal solutions require tracking which is hard to do under cloudy conditions and even in other low light conditions.
    Studies show that it yields only about 15-18% efficiency. (ie KWelec = .15 KWthermal)

    However, Solar thermal is very good option for industrial heating which constitutes almost 30-40% of the electricity needs in industry.

    There’s a company in France, which I believe is trying to go after the "long tail" of the market need: http://www.solarfire.org.

    In any case, another phenomenal discussion, Steve! Thanks!

    Reply
  18. ChrisRudge Avatar
    ChrisRudge

    as well as the mirror, surely there is a tracking mount below to keep the sun reflected to just the right place on the tower?
    I do like the mechanical simplicity of these systems, as unlike PV could probably be repaired or replaced in tears to come by relatively unspecialist engineers.

    Reply
  19. cmccolgan Avatar
    cmccolgan

    Drona – One of brightsources R&D initiatives is coatings that will help with protecting the panels against the elements (and dust primarily as it does rain nearly as much in the desert where these heliostats are meant to placed.) Unfortunately, everything they have found ultimately decreases reflectivity in the short term. Your guess is as good as mine inthe long term, but according to thermal testing, previous demonstrations in the 80s, and the simple materials 9that are used by other materials under similar conditions), evidence would suggest that helistat degredation won’t be the major issue on lifetime efficiency.

    Reply
  20. obskura Avatar
    obskura

    @Jim Rees: There are people working on storage. Spain has facilities online with molten salt heat storage, using the latent energy to cover periods without sun.
    The Australian National University is working on storage with their 500 square meter "Big Dish" parabolic mirror, using the heat to split ammonia into nitrogen and hydrogen which can be stored indefinitely. Recombining them will release the energy on demand. It’s a closed system, and it might just make the concept of base load power obsolete, by providing vast amounts of solar generated on-demand energy.
    solar-thermal.anu.edu.au/high_temp/thermochem/index.php

    Reply
  21. Gone-Walkabout Avatar
    Gone-Walkabout

    isn’t this from a Bond flick? Something about incinerating hazmat in the desert somwhere in Africa?

    Reply
  22. goodeye03 (Rich) Avatar
    goodeye03 (Rich)

    Gone-Walkabout That was Sahara by Clive Cussler

    Reply
  23. endolith Avatar
    endolith

    How do they stay so clean?

    Reply
  24. Project Sustainability Avatar
    Project Sustainability

    Hi, I’m an admin for a group called Project Sustainability, and we’d love to have this added to the group!

    Reply
  25. ceo-me Avatar
    ceo-me

    Hey Steve,

    This seems like one of your many master pieces..
    Great shot,
    Yes the degradation of the reflective panels is a concern specially in india.
    But i have been looking at a small installation in Pune from the past 1+ year,
    it hasn’t degraded or damaged due to other natural elements. Lemme wait & watch..

    Yes Steve coming to the point,
    can I have your permission to use this picture on my solar energy based website
    http://www.solarenergyexplorer.com

    Hope you reply,

    Regards,
    ceo-me

    Reply
  26. jurvetson Avatar
    jurvetson

    sure, all are free with a photo credit link back.

    Here is a current shot of the first of three solar fields going in Ivanpah

    That’s a full golf course to the right for a sense of scale…

    Reply
  27. born1945 Avatar
    born1945

    The solar fields have not shown up on Google Earth yet. It will be interesting to see them.

    Reply

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