All the Power We Need From What Looks Like a Satellite Dish?
I caught the end of a program on the Science Channel tonight that featured Stirling Energy Technologies. Stirling has been around since the 80’s relative to alternative energy sources. Stirling is not selling retail to the public on an individual basis yet, but considering I have a large satellite dish out here in the boonies I would have no problem owning a solar dish in the future.
The FAQ page for Stirling describes:
Our Solar Dish Stirling system is shaped much like large satellite dishes (approximately 37’ in diameter) and covered with curved mirrors. These solar dishes are programmed to always face the sun and focus that energy on a collector in much the same way that a satellite dish focuses radio waves on a tuner. This collector is connected to a Stirling engine, which uses the thermal power generated by the focused solar energy to heat liquid hydrogen in a closed-loop system. The expanding hydrogen gas creates a pressure wave on the pistons of the Stirling engine, which spins an electric motor creating electricity with no fuel cost or pollution. This technology is referred to as solar thermal or concentrating solar power.
The company also says that at a “power plant producing 1,000 MW, the cost per kWh would be less than ten cents,” and “[o]ne dish on an annual basis can produce 55,000-60,000 kWh of electricity. This is equivalent to the total energy required for 8-10 homes in the U.S.” ChaChing!
Stirling may save the Western part of our country in the future. Right now Stirling is planning a solar field 5 miles square in the desert that will supply the entire city of San Diego with electricity. Of course as more of this type of technology is utilized, the more the engineers can improve and modify, modify, modify. Remember computers back in the 70’s? I used to do keypunch and then worked on a desktop computer in U of M hospital’s personnel dept. The mainframe to those computers back then took up a whole room. We had to type the info on forms with 7 carbon copies first, then input the data too because we couldn’t trust that the system wouldn’t go down and dump everything. The miracle of innovation, and modification is apparent as I type this on my little laptop that I can take anywhere and doesn’t even require a mouse. See what I mean?
The sooner we unleash all the technology that is out there to see what we actually can come up with, the sooner it gets modified down to convenient personal size. Right now it would take 20,000 dishes to equal a coalburner or nuke plant. But with future innovation and modification in no time we could see that number down to hundreds as the size of the equipment is reduced. Better yet our own personal dish, and mini power station no bigger than a small boiler that produces everything we need with absolutely no fuel used or pollution produced to keep us nice and cool as the sun sears on. Am I taking it too far? I don’t think so.
Read more about Stirling: http://www.stirlingenergy.com/faq.asp?Type=all