alt.energy.renewable

"Mauried" wrote in message news:@news....
> On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 13:54:48 -0800, "Rob Dekker"
> wrote:
>
>>
>>"BobG" wrote in message news:4c507099-b117-4e8c-8127-e605468d05fa@...
>>> Heard this on Paul Harvey driving to work today....
>>> /daily/local/
>>
>>$1 billion solar-thermal plant near Gila Bend ....
>>....At 280 megawatts, enough to power at least 70,000 households......
>>
>>That's about $ / Watt installed.
>>How does that compare to PV ?
>>
>>Rob
>>
>>
>
> Its slightly better than PV, but not much.
> Which begs the question why isnt it many times better.
> Mirrors are more than 90% efficient at reflecting sunlight,
> so why is the plants cost in terms of dollars per watt so poor.
>
> The plant is going to cover 3 sq miles which equals million sq
> meters.
> At 1000 watts per square meter the plant should make GW if it
> was 100% efficient, but its only going to make 280 MW which makes it
> only 3% efficient.
> Where is all the energy lost.
>

My question exactly !
Especially since solar thermal pilot plants (including the big Kramer Junction plants) predicted efficiencies of 10-15%, and pretty
low investment costs (2$/Watt if I'm not mistaken).
And what happened to the 40% efficient Stirling engine plants ? Arn't these cheaper than $3/Watt in investment cost ?
And wasn't there an NREL report with similar good outlooks for upgraded (larger scale) solar thermal plants ?


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