Comments on: James May and the Solar Tower

By: noahstrickland

noahstrickland — Tue, 11 Nov 2008 17:20:50 +0000

awsome.

By: rhesus pieces

rhesus pieces — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 01:09:35 +0000

Ahahaha, I was JUST thinking that very though. I'm gonna take a road trip to Spain, hangout at these towers for a summer and fulfill my dream of watching a bird burst into flame mid-flight. *tweet tweet TWE-FOOMP!*

By: madtownrob

madtownrob — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:33:33 +0000

"and it doesn’t have - from what I understand - any environmental repercussions"

What about the poor birds that fly through and get cooked? Somebody has to stand up for their rights too!

By: Gorf

Gorf — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 01:30:04 +0000

They can put their Solar Tower where the sun don't shine!

By: Johnny Cat

Johnny Cat — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:41:58 +0000

rdubs, you're on meth. You may be thinking of the launch pad for the spacecraft to Saturn.

By: rdubs

rdubs — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 22:01:01 +0000

i think one of these was in the movie gattaca or something. or maybe im on meth. i dunno

By: Alex

Alex — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 18:26:03 +0000

Solar Tower of Power For some reason it reminds me of the tower from the Lord of the Rings.

By: Ali S.

Ali S. — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 16:44:43 +0000

@ BirdS

I believe this show of James May is called "James May's Big Ideas" - http://www.open2.net/jamesmay/index.html

@ zav and michael

D’oh! Thanks for pointing out to me that the tower is indeed the third of its kind. Fixed!

By: michael diatalevi

michael diatalevi — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:35:28 +0000

I knew that college education would come in handy...Wiki confirms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Solar_Project) first tower in California!

By: BirdS

BirdS — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 13:26:01 +0000

Interesting subject.

Apparently "microwave technology could be applied for wireless energy transmission through space, and to the planet's surface".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_solar_power

I'm a big fan of James May - anyone know what the name of this series is?

By: Stubbly

Stubbly — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:20:49 +0000

Someone needs take elementary science again. Water is only ever in a cycle when used on earth. The water is heated and becomes high pressure steam, which is then pumped through a turbine which turns and generates power. The steam then evaporates through cooling towers into the sky, where it eventually condenses into clouds of water droplets which fall to earth as rain. The water then gets pumped around again.

By: Orjan Morjan

Orjan Morjan — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 09:08:53 +0000

@Peeves

Why do you think they would let the water vapors escape?
They don't do that at coal or nuclear power plants so why would they with this one. It cools down after going trough the turbine.

By: Dale

Dale — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:50:09 +0000

Wow - a comment turned into a Neatorama entry

By: Peeves

Peeves — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 08:09:41 +0000

Not sure if I'm understanding it right but isn't water a non-renewable resource? If we produced energy like this for the masses we'd be evaporating our water supply like crazy right? Not sure how much water we have relative to how much we'd use but like oil we'd run out eventually..but maybe the timeline is like a million years? Any experts around? I'm really interested in how to convert energy from the sun into energy to use directly, e.g. solar power..that's renewable until the sun explodes.

By: Jared

Jared — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 06:10:22 +0000

Pudifoot: Any heat gained through not reflecting back to space would be a lot less than the long term greenhouse effect of the CO2 that would be created manufacturing the same amount of power using coal etc

By: Christophe

Christophe — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 04:28:36 +0000

I was in the Navarre Spain region earlier this year and it looked like I was in another world.
Let's just read the excerpt from Wikipedia :

"By 2004, 61% [yes 61!!!!]of the region's electricity was generated by renewable sources consisting of 43.6% from 28 wind farms, 12% from over 100 small-scale water turbines, and 5.3% from 2 biomass and 2 biogas plants. In addition, the region had what was then Spain's largest photovoltaic power plant at Montes de Cierzo de Tudela (1.2 MWp capacity) plus several hundred smaller photovoltaic installations"

Go Spain!

By: Berger

Berger — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:36:47 +0000

Beat me on this one Easy

By: Berger

Berger — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:21:41 +0000

Yeah My first tough was also space... but how do you transport the electricity back to earth? It's not like an extension cord would do the trick. Hm.

By: Easy

Easy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:15:03 +0000

obviously... with a very long extension cord.

By: Pudifoot

Pudifoot — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 03:02:45 +0000

the irony is that deserts are nice to prevent global warming. they reflect a LOT of light back into space. you turn the deserts into solar farms and suddenly you are capturing that heat instead of reflecting it... and then next thing you know the polar bears are drowning and Al Gore is making a sequel.

By: d

Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:55:44 +0000

space, you divs

By: zav

zav — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:52:01 +0000

It's not the first. It's Solar III. Which would be the uhhh, third. You can check wikipedia for more info on it. It's the extension of the solar furnace work done at Sandia labs.

By: Berger

Berger — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:28:46 +0000

Yes, where could that be? I hear days are pretty long in the arctic region (sunshine at midnight)... I would be happy with the name of the show, or a link!

By: Easy

Easy — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 02:16:47 +0000

It ends with "this would be so much more useful if there was a place where the sun always shone. And there is..."

Well? Where is it? Put the next episode up!

By: Kimberly

Kimberly — Thu, 06 Nov 2008 01:24:03 +0000

Is that Captain Slow James May? Interesting to see him in a different light...