Talk:Solar updraft tower

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[edit] Wikipedia Integrity

All discussions on this article are hypothetical with no scientific basis in fact. The History talks about proposals. There is only one "questionable" Prototyope, which is actuallty the jist of this entire article, and very questionable at that! Then there is a "Proposed solar tower projects" with "artist's impressions," and "Financial feasibility" as which "there are no fuel costs" that are feasible.

Somebody is waiting for Alice in Wonderland to show up. This type of science-fiction article should not be posted on Wikipedia with an introduction that scientific article. The introduction should state in bold face that it is a HYPOTHETICAL type of renewable-energy power plant that has been proposed but not actually ever produced. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Valich (talk • contribs)

I agree it's hypothetical; this was made clear in the intro, but I've added the word "proposed" in the first sentence, to make it clearer. --Singkong2005 talk 15:39, 29 September 2006 (UTC)
I think it's important that Wikipedia does have an article on this, but it's going to be a problematical one. And EnviroMission does have a stock exchange listing and seems to have the ear of some significant politicians, even some financiers, and lots and lots of others. Their website and issued reports are citeable, and the line between data and promotional material is sometimes hard to draw. Personally, I agree about Alice in Wonderland, but you can't really question her popularity. (;-> Andrewa 04:42, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
And some of the people involved are pretty big time. They've got both local and state government "project of national signficance" support. Their financial advisers/backers are the most successful merchant bank in Australia who run highways and airports and other large infrastructure and know what they are doing. Their engineering partners are one of the largest in the country. Finally, they've already broken ground. There's a meteorolgical station on site and the most recent Google Maps images show what looks to be test ponds for that salt water pond enhancement thingy. Now personally I think the enviromission company itself seems a little dodgy, but they definately seem to have economic and engineering partners that are pretty good. Adam Kennedy
Perhaps we should also have an article on gravity engines. We don't seem to yet. Andrewa 03:10, 19 January 2007 (UTC)
I made a sincere attempt to bring this article up to Wikipedia standard, but I got frustrated about it when people made this task next to impossible. Every single word I wanted to put in needed to be sourced, otherwise people would take it out right away. Paragraphs I wrote were removed immediately, with no justification whatsoever, and on and one it went. On the other hand, Alice in Wonderland statement would be put in without the slightest attempt of justification.
I am honestly puzzled by what has been going on here. At one point in time I thought that this was an attempt by EnviroMission to turn this into a promotional site. If that is what they tried to do it backfired on them, because this talkpage now really looks very bad for EnviroMission. But maybe it is just that people got carried away by this phallus symbol in the middle of the Australian outback. JdH 19:14, 7 March 2007 (UTC)
It turns out that spamming continues: I recently removed spam links that where put in by 220.238.125.69 and 211.30.230.216. In my opinion these may be sockpuppets of Flexme, since they resolve to OPTUSnet. JdH 14:41, 25 March 2007 (UTC)
the first one of those is me ... yes i think enviromission does have something to do with this idea (and i cannot remmeber my passwords hehehe - it is better that way), and i think this idea has something to do with enviromission, but the other one/person/personality ... hmmm ... i will have to try to find some time to have a look - it is new to me ... is it true?... flex.

[edit] SVG

I have taken the PNG and created an SVG. I would like some feedback regarding the SVG.

PNG SVG

My first issue is the lines should be bigger and the arrow heads larger as they are harder to see when image is shrunk down. Second is the missing "zoom box" showing the top-right bit is a zoomed in area. Anything else? Cburnett 05:17, 15 January 2007 (UTC)

I think the svg looks a lot better. It's better to have small lines than blurry lines. -Theanphibian (talk • contribs) 22:42, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merge proposal: Ciudad Real Torre Solar

Merge/redirect of Ciudad Real Torre Solar to Solar updraft tower was pretty much the consensus of the recent AfD discussion Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Ciudad Real Torre Solar. JdH 13:51, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I have performed the merge. Maybe the article can later be recreated with more content, but an article consisting of just three or four sentences is really unnecessary when an appropriate merge target exists. Cheers, Black Falcon 18:13, 27 March 2007 (UTC)
And I took out some (but not all) of the promotional material that has been the onus of this article for such a long time. It will be interesting to see whether the spammers have the audacity to put it back in after the demise of the Aussie Solar Tower. JdH 13:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] yet again

Yet again in his fight for banning anything that could possibly be interpreted as positive about this technology, User:JdH has removed cited material that suggests it might be economic, leaving only uncited weaselwords in that section; rejected 8 years of operation of a prototype being called "successful" and removed the report that the prototype was featured on Beyond 2000, at the time a major television show about new technology. He then gleefully provides a reference for the eventual destruction of the prototype, while requesting other people to not remove references (who else did?). Most of us have to pay to read the full article, but the abstract does not mention the destruction of the prototype, only the establishment of EnviroMission to commercialise the technology in the context of many different proposed ways of turning sunlight into electricity on a commercial scale. JdH - could you please add a quote parameter to the citation to help those of us who don't pay $US30 understand the significance of the paper? The "spam" link you removed three days ago appears to have been the video of that Beyond 2000 article, with "EnviroMission" plastered over the station logo.

I would like to see a proper article on each proposed technology, including cited information about how it would work, who is proposing to build it, and where. If these things appear in the news, people should be able to come to Wikipedia and find out more. It is not for Wikipedia to choose one viable solution and not cover any others. Readers should also be able to see the history of prototypes and failed proposals, as well as the current status. The subject should be covered completely, whether in this single article, or spread across this one, EnviroMission, Solar Tower Buronga, Solar Tower Manzanares, Ciudad Real Torre Solar and others. --Scott Davis Talk 14:54, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Scott, I honestly don't understand what you your problem is. I have put in many links to the peer-reviewed literature, and put in a substantial amount of effort to bring this thing to Wikipedia standard. All information I have put in is verifiable. If you don't have access to sciencedirect.com you can go down to the nearest University library, or you can write to the author and ask for a reprint. On the other hand, there is a lot of material that comes from company websites, or company press releases, interviews with company personnel, or other promotional material and should therefore be considered spam.
The header I changed said literally:Successful prototype in Spain. The word Successful expresses a bias and does not belong in a Wikipedia article, see WP:NPOV.
I don't agree that we should give a detailed account of all EnviroMission proposals and redesigns that came to naught: it is not encyclopedic, and it is not done for other companies either. The references to the recent news articles I put in pretty much tell the story, and we should leave it at that. If and when actual progress is made with the project that paragraph can be updated as needed.
About financial feasibility: There are sharp disagreements about that. The only reference that was in there was the Schlaich paper. Other references are much more critical, in particular Zaslavsky mentioned a few paragraphs earlier in this discussion: "It is easy to show that the electricity cannot possibly be cheaper than 25-35 cents per kWh, only because there is a use of a collector". The paragraph I removed did not mention that: all it did is give Schlaich's optimistic view. An unbiased discussion of feasibility has to include both sides of the story, but when we discussed that a while back (see a few paragraphs above) we agreed to stay away from that. JdH 08:06, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Jdh has systematically supported the design which uses mirrors and send the sun's rays to the centre. jdh has continuously destroyed this page. jdh has always been anti the solar tower. jdh changed the name of the page from "solar tower" and hid it under "solar updraft tower"! just a few weeks later ... jdh's dream of the stirling engine then gained lots of funding in the same area near mildura where enviromission was aiming with a solar tower ... jdh then of course removed the link to enviromission! jdh has attempted to use this page as a publicity stunt for the projects jdh wants funding for ... jdh has tried to always say that enviromission (or any other orgnisation trying to use this technology) will fail. Maybe jdh is right - if jdh is right - then hopefully jdh is looking at a positive alternative ... however ... jdh should not be simply being a negative force here. jdh should go to the pages jdh likes and push their case in those pages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.238.23.86 (talk)

I am an advocate of Solar energy in general, and I don't care which technology prevails. All I am interested in is a fair representation of all scholarly information that is out there. EnviroMission promotional material does not to meet the standard scholarly. JdH 08:14, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Does your lop-sided attempt at balance qualify as a a useful addition? Maybe - so long as you do not destroy. However you do destroy ... you do interrupt ... you do disrupt. You renamed the page!!!!!!!!! You are clearly unbalanced on this issue. And you have had a huge affect. The history of your edits is available (so is mine and I admit I do like the solar tower idea, but I think I am a lot more balanced than you). I have a challenge for you jdh ... change the links section so that it reflects useful links ... links related to the solar tower ... not just links supporting a solar project that you want to have gain funding. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 220.238.23.86 (talk) 08:30, 29 March 2007 (UTC).
Your edits are clearly from a position of some knowledge in the field, but they certainly carry a tone of dislike for this particular technology. For example the quote below (thankyou for providing it) does not say that the Manzanares plant was "destroyed by induced vortices" (it may be true, but is not said in that reference). The "severe structural instability" could indeed have contributed to the decision to decommission the plant, but that reference doesn't show it. It is possible that this instability is why later proposed designs have a different turbine arrangement, but we do not know that.
You have not explained why the Beyond 2000 article should not be mentioned, or even have that video linked to on youtube.
I would like the first paragraph of the financial viability (the one citing Schlaich) added back if possible, but I'm happy to have different cited views of how it would be costed included as well.
In Australia, there are significant penalties for public companies that mislead shareholders, so releases through the stock exchange are expected to be true. They are primary sources, but WP:RS allows primary sources within reason, the same as it allows certain blogs, as you have previously noted. --Scott Davis Talk 15:15, 29 March 2007 (UTC)
Your remark "there are significant penalties for public companies that mislead shareholders" reminds me of this paragraph in a recent news article: ...a short-lived 80 per cent spike in October. That blip was based on misguided speculation the company would benefit from a $75 million federal grant. That blip indicates that there are investors out there who lost money on their investment in EnviroMission stock. You may ask yourself: Where did that misguided speculation come from? Back in June 2006 I was already of the opinion that the Solar Tower was obsolete, just on the basis of the scientific articles that I referenced in this article. Back then I was already concerned that investors who were silly enough to listen to EnviroMission promotion would get burned, sooner or later. For that reason, and no other, I thought it was important that this article provides a balanced an honest description of the technology. So who is to blame (liable?) for the fact that those investors were misguided? Their own stupidity? EnviroMission promotion? Or perhaps those who turned this article into a platform for EnviroMission promotion? After all, some of those investors may have based their investment decision on this article, especially small investors who don't have the knowhow and resources to do an independent analysis. JdH 14:02, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I am re-adding the sourced content of the "Financial feasibility" section, as there is really no valid reason for it ("fairy tales" might have more weight if it wasn't sourced) and it leaves the section in shambles. I agree with the decision to remove the word "successful" from the section heading "Successful prototype in Spain". -- Black Falcon 18:19, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

That "Financial feasibility" section was really very very biased. I have made substantial changes to it to make it less partisan. There is still some bias left.
I have also taken out the word "destroyed" that Scott didn't like; I have replaced it with the exact wording from the Mills paper. I am not supposed to do that (copyright and stuff), but this seems the best way to settle this.
I really think you are overhyping that Ciudad Real Torre Solar proposal. As I understand it it is just a proposal, there is no actual progress towards its realization. Until such a time that construction is actually underway I think it is best to reduce it to no more than a single sentence. JdH 21:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)
There's no problem with including the exact wording; just add quotation marks around the quoted portion. As for Ciudad Real Torre Solar, yes it's just a proposal, but it's one that's been the subject of multiple sources. The proposed construction is notable enough to justify having its own article (as per the AFD discussion), but I merged it here for more appropriate content organisation. It's far less informative to state that a proposal exists without stating exactly what the proposal comprises. I don't think it's inappropriate to provide some details on a proposal to build the tallest structure in the world (the current record-holder is the KVLY-TV mast standing at 628.8 metres). -- Black Falcon 22:17, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Copy of relevant section from the Mills paper

Mills, D. (January-March 2004). "Advances in solar thermal electricity technology". Solar Energy 76 (1-3): 19-31. Elsevier Science Ltd.. doi:10.1016/S0038-092X(03)00102-6. 

4.2. Solar chimney

Solar chimney technology is being proposed for Australia based upon German technology. Air is heated underneath a large glass structure of about 5 km in diameter, and passes up a large chimney through a wind turbine near the base as it rise. The chimney for a 200 MW(e) tower would be the tallest structure in the world, 1 km high. A company, Enviromission Ltd. has been listed in Australia to commercialise the concept but costs are not given on their web site ([Enviromission, 2001]). A site near Mildura is being investigated. Plants have also been proposed for South Africa and India. A Web site ( [Energen International, 1999]) set up for a Rajasthan plant suggests a capital cost of US$700 million, or US$3500 per kW(e).

The first chimney was tested at Manzanares, Spain, between 1982 and 1988 and is now being proposed for sites in South Africa and India. The Manzanares plant achieved a solar to electricity efficiency of 0.53% but SBP believe that this could be increased to 1.3% in a large 100 MW(e) unit with detail improvements ([Schlaich, 1995]). The efficiency of these plants increases with size. The capacity factor measured at Manzanares was 10% but it is claimed this would rise to 29% in a 200 MW(e) unit. The Manzanares plant was retrofitted for a test with black plastic containing water as thermal storage and this allowed output to continue for up to 22 h. The developers claim that black mining scrap can be used for this purpose.

The SBP technology originally used plastic sheet glazing at Manzanares, but this encountered severe structural instability close to the tower due to induced vortices. Toughened glass is likely to be used for all future plants. Because of size, array-cleaning cost is an important area of concern. However, other maintenance costs associated with this approach seem to be very low.

[edit] Plastic membrane roof gets brittle

Schlaich J, Schiel W (2001), "Solar Chimneys", in RA Meyers (ed), Encyclopedia of Physical Science and Technology, 3rd Edition, Academic Press, London. ISBN 0-12-227410-5 downloadPDF (180 KiB)

Fig. 7. Plastic membrane roof used in part of the prototype plant at Manzanares, Spain. It was installed there for comparison with the glass roof. It was cheaper than glass; however, plastic gets brittle with time and thus tends to tear. The membranes are clamped to a frame and stressed down to earth at the center by use of a plate with drain holes.

[edit] Removal of "More puff than power" source

JdH, I was confused by your most recent edit. Could you please explain in some more detail why you removed the "More puff than power" source. In your edit summary you noted that the source is "very inaccurate & biased, and it doesn't add anything new. The issue of variability is addressed adequately in the wiki links I provided".

First, I want to note that sources that are biased may still be reliable; they just ought to be used with more caution. Consider, for instance, sources from political newspapers. They may be biased toward a particular ideology, but that does not necessarily diminish their reliability. I don't know whether The Age has a position on solar updraft towers, but my impression is that it is a very reliable source.

Second, please describe how it is "inaccurate". It does not seem that you are disputing the claim it sources, but rather the source itself.

Third, I'm not sure what you mean by "it doesn't add anything new". It sources a statement, which is its purpose.

Finally, you note that the issue is addressed in the wikilinks you provide. In general, verification through wikilinks should be avoided. To ensure there's no misunderstanding, could you please note which links you're specifically referring to? If you are referring to the sentences that immediately followed the reference, I should note that those are currently unreferenced.

I would appreciate your clarifications. Thanks, Black Falcon 23:40, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

First of all, it is a news article. It does not even mention where that information came from. Did they interview somebody? Or did they get that info from some report? What report? Without that information we are clueless where that information came from, and how trustworthy it is. You may want to look at WP:RS. News articles are considered Secondary sources, and in this case it does not meet even that standard because it does not mention sources. It looks more like an opinion to me than a genuine news report.
At this point I want to point at that I spent a lot of effort to come up with primary sources.
About mistakes: It says literally: "Another intriguing project is the 500-megawatt solar tower, proposed for near Mildura, where a huge greenhouse would generate hot air to be sucked up a 500-metre- high tube, turning embedded wind turbines.". That's off by a factor 10; the scaled down version of the Solar Tower Buronga is only 50MW. That error is very significant, because it inflates the Solar Tower such that it starts to look good against the competition. Just the paragraph before it talks about a "Victoria's biggest power station, Loy Yang A, produces 2000 megawatts. " Well now, that factor 10 is going to make a HUGE difference: whether you need 4 or 40 Solar Towers to match that makes all the difference in the world.
In the end it is about COE (Cost of Energy), and conversion efficiency. The Solar Tower has a "flatter" diurnal cycle, but it comes at the expense of a far lower conversion efficiency: You pay a price for that flatter cycle. The article does not bring that up, a sort of glosses over it, and by doing so it makes it appear as if there is no price to pay.
Concerning the embedded wikilinks: please have a look at Intermittent power sources; it is a well written article, albeit I am not too impressed with the sources it quotes. Still is is far superior to that news article. You can also go down to Distributed generation; that is mostly a link page with a host of links to other articles. Wind power has also a discussion about intermittency, if you want to replace the wiki link to wind farm with that one: that's fine with me. Renewable energy also discusses that. There must be other links that address that issue for solar power as well, let me see now Solar One#Solar Two adresses the issue of intermittancy as well. There must be more; I haven't made a complete survey yet. If you want to include links to some of those, please feel free to do so. JdH 01:28, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
Several comments in relation to the above:
The Age is considered a major mainstream newspaper in Australia. It is published by Fairfax Media, who also publish the Australian Financial Review, Australia's only daily business-oriented newspaper.
The article in question is an opinion piece, published by a journalist at The Age. JdH has previously identified that he considers blog articles by major CNN reporters to be acceptable sources. This should be in a similar category.
WP:RS#Types of source material classifies sources into primary, secondary, and tertiary, and specifically says that Wikipedia articles should where possible be mainly sourced from secondary sources. It is unclear to me whether an opinion column by a journalist published by a newspaper should be considered to be a primary or secondary source.
I agree that the scale error is a problem, and am surprised that it has not been corrected in the online version of the article. However, the solar tower is not the main point of the story, nor the main reason it is used as a reference. The point is that the newspaper article is a layman's introduction to why traditional wind power cannot be used as base load power, nor even accounted for in the same way (in Australia).
I'm not sure if Wikipedia has a policy relating to citing online vs offline sources. If the best reference is not available free and online, but an acceptable reference is, I'd favour including both, so that people who don't have access to the best one can still read something. I don't know how to show this decision in the article. --Scott Davis Talk 15:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
--Scott Davis Talk 15:19, 31 March 2007 (UTC)

I take exception with your remark "JdH has previously identified that he considers blog articles by major CNN reporters to be acceptable sources.". While there is extensive coverage of the Solar Tower Buronga proposal there is precious little about its present status, and that particular article is the best I managed to come up with. If it were covered by a major news paper I would rather use that, but it isn't there.
On the other hand, intermittancy of wind power is the subject of much research and development, and a quick Google search uncovers literally thousands of articles, including Wikipedia articles. Among those are scholarly papers by DeCarolis and Keith[1][2][5], Jacobson and Masters[4], and Dale et al[3]. Basically, intermittancy and transportation add to the Cost of Electricity, and it is possible to make an estimate of that added cost. The bottomline: "Even with the added cost to deal with intermittency, wind is roughly competitive with other generation technologies under a strong carbon constraint".[1]
WP:RS#Types of source material states "Wikipedia articles should rely on reliable, published secondary sources wherever possible", and an opinion article that is partisan and inaccurate does not meet that standard. Since the subject is covered extensively by unbiased sources there is no reason to turn to a partisan source instead. JdH 16:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

  1. ^ DeCarolis, Joseph F.; David W. Keith (January-February 2005). "The Costs of Wind's Variability: Is There a Threshold?". The Electricity Journal 18 (1): 69-77. Elsevier Inc.. doi:10.1016/j.tej.2004.12.006. 
  2. ^ DeCarolis, Joseph F.; David W. Keith (March 2006). "The economics of large-scale wind power in a carbon constrained world". Energy Policy 34 (4): 395-410. Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.tej.2004.12.006. 
  3. ^ Dale, Lewis; David Milborrow, Richard Slark and Goran Strbac (November 2004). "Total cost estimates for large-scale wind scenarios in UK". Energy Policy 32 (17): 1949-1956. Elsevier Ltd.. doi:10.1016/j.enpol.2004.03.012. 
  4. ^ Jacobson, Mark Z.; Gilbert M. Masters (2001-08-24). "Exploiting Wind Versus Coal". Science 293 (5534): 1438. American Association for the Advancement of Science. doi:10.1126/science.1063376. 
  5. ^ DeCarolis, Joseph F.; David W. Keith (2001-11-02). "The Real Cost of Wind Energy". Science 294 (5544): 1000 - 1003. American Association for the Advancement of Science. doi:10.1126/science.294.5544.1000. 
The inaccuracy of one statement in a work does not necessarily nullify the value of the entire work, though it certainly calls for additional caution. Also, a source that is partisan can still be reliable. According to some, The Guardian is a partisan news source, but it is certainly reliable (though the fact of this being an opinion piece degrades reliability some more in my eyes).
In any case, the presence of better sources that cover the same statement(s) essentially makes this discussion moot. But if you remove sources on that basis, please substitute them with the new sources. Especially since you are not disputing the statement that "A solar tower is expected to have less of a requirement for standby capacity from traditional energy sources than a wind farm", a semi-reliable source is better than no source at all. -- Black Falcon 17:29, 1 April 2007 (UTC)
The much cited paper by Schaich et al covers that particular statement, and there is also much discussion in the Wiki articles I linked to, and sources cited there. If you still think it is necessary to put in a reference to the DeCarolis article that's fine with me, but I thought there are already plenty of references as is. JdH 19:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I was surprised to find out how controversial this "More puff than power" article really is. You may want to have a look at Bluff and bluster: The campaign against wind power. a blog from Mark Diesendorf. Basically, Diesendorf (University of New South Wales) accuses the coal industry and possibly the aluminium industry in Australia of supporting anti-wind power groups: "Anti-wind power groups that exaggerate environmental impacts and technical limitations should be scrutinised for possible funding from industries that stand to gain from attacks on wind power". He wrote reports about Clean energy future, both National report and State-specific reports. In the full report he wrote about A Clean Energy Future for Australia he specifically addresses the following "Myths":
Myth 1. Since wind power is an intermittent source, it cannot replace coal-fired power unless it has expensive, dedicated, long-term storage.
 Myth 1a: Because of wind power’s intermittency, it has no value in meeting peak demands.
 Myth 2: To maintain a steady state of voltage and frequency requires much additional expense.
 Myth 3. There are necessarily large energy losses in transmitting wind power to end users.
 JdH 19:42, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Caveat lector

Let the reader beware that this is a contentious article. Relevant discussions have been archived, and it may be worthwhile to have a look at that, in particular discussions on Mediation, conversion efficiency and Financial hurdles. JdH 16:43, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

See also Talk:Solar Tower Buronga and Talk:Ciudad Real Torre Solar. These are both talk pages for articles that have now become redirects, so they don't get a lot of traffic any more, but they have some interesting old debates. Andrewa 11:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Electrical Supergrid

The problem with moving power from one place to another is that you end up spending quite a bit of power on line losses. The reason why nobody has built a supergrid is because in order to cover enough total area to mitigate the effects of local variations it would have to be large enough for the line losses to make it not really worth the effort. If they can resolve this issue (Among others - such as catastrophic failure due to a main line break), then I'd be happy to see such a system. However, I don't think that a blog entry written about a company's press release is a reliable source. Also, it discusses DC power which is not really all that great for long distances. Fdgfds 01:47, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Financial feasibility

I've tagged a paragraph in Financial feasibility with clarify and added these html comments:

What is this trying to say? Which comparisons? Cite them. Which structures are simpler? Is a tower plus collector plus turbines simpler than a freestanding wind rotor? Cite the speculation. -Wikianon (talk) 10:18, 9 December 2007 (UTC)