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Caution on Biofuel Use…

  Are We Close to Solving the “Holy Grail” of Solar Energy?

  “I would put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I  

  hope we don’t have to wait till oil and coal run out before we tackle that” said

  Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb. His wish may soon come true. The

  much-hyped new technology using molten salt to store solar energy could very well

  be the inflection point in the global solar energy industry. Though the concept is still evolving, if scientists are to be believed we may just be very close to solving the “Holy Grail” of solar energy – the storage problem.

SolarReserve, a company created through partnership between the US Renewables Group and aerospace parts maker Hamilton Sundstrand Corp., plans to implement large-scale solar power generation, with a single tower capable of producing up to 500 megawatts of peak power. The company plans to build solar power towers filled with a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate salts. The technology, known as solar thermal, may have an efficiency of up to 40%, whereas solar cells' average commercial efficiency is only about 20%. During the day, the solar thermal towers would gather enough sunlight to melt the salts, which are stored until more energy is needed. Then, the molten salt could be used to heat water that operates a steam turbine, which generates electric power.

The researchers say that using molten salt for energy storage is advantageous over using water as in a conventional hydroelectric plant, since it is more predictable than water reserves and can release energy on demand. SolarReserve plans to have its first solar plant complete by the end of 2010.

The promise looks great. Just hope that this is not another one of those concepts that remains buried in academic papers or stays confined to pilot projects!

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