How Mirrors Could Solve our Energy Problem
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- Опубликовано: 30 май 2024
- We visited a giant field of solar mirrors to learn about Concentrated #Solar Power technology! Thank you to Toyota for lending us the Mirai and for sponsoring this renewable energy roadtrip!
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Concentrated Solar
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Kurzgesagt, Veritasium, Electroboom, Kyle and physics girl all uploaded what a nice day!
I thought I was the only one who noticed this
This is a great day!
lol so truuee
Yoooo
Kyle...from Tenacious D?
Oh you mean Kyle Hill aka Sci_Phile
I made some of those parabolic mirrors at Noor and Noor2 which are installed in Morocco. Specifically, I was the plant engineer at Rioglass Solar in Surprise, AZ, and I designed, tested, and validated the packaging to ship 2 tons of glass (per package) across the world. I also 'owned' the mirror line, furnace line, product printing, etcetera.
One small nitpick: it's not a focal 'point' but a focal line.
Is the focal point the radius?
@@koendos3 No you get a focal point when using a circular parabolic mirror. These are linear parabolic mirrors, so the light is not concentrated in a point but a line.
@@koendos3 no, the focal point of a parabola is opposite from the directorix line. Focal point is where all parallel, incident rays (from the sun in this case) are directed to. This applies to a parabolic curve in 2d (x and y only) space. Since the solar arrays are parabolic troughs in 3-d space ( x, y, and z), all those infinite focal points line up to form a focal line. System efficiency depends on that line having a very narrow (narrowest possible in practice) width to minimize energy lost to reflection.
Also, those parabolic troughs are 4-segment arrays composed of 2 inner parabolic segments and 2 outer ones. They are of course symmetric for max solar capture because they are computer- steered to point optimally toward the sun.
@@nicklockard Just curious, how efficient are those compared to current energy demands and the land it uses?
I did a project on the molten salt CSP towers back in my college Heat Transfer class! SUPER fascinating stuff, and I had the same reaction when I drove by the Ivanpah power station for the first time too! I was like "IS THAT WHAT I THINK IT IS?!?!?!?" and had to exit and check it out haha.
Awesome series, Dianna! I really enjoyed it :)
Do a piece on this one. Or are you already on it??
Keep going
Dianna. Pfffffff =))
Since I vanwpaugh was a boondoggle that didn't produce power, they shut it down. Now molten salts can also transfer great amounts of heat safely in a nuclear reactor Terra watts more energy, since it is 24/7,obviosly takes thousands of times less space with attendant reduction of waste, they still haven't decommissioned Ivanapaugh,never produced one watt of useful power.
Did you consider total cost of maintenance? That solar planet outside Las Vegas was $1B failure ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
Had several of these built in my hometown. All of which are gone now because it was relatively inefficient when it came to creating power. Albeit, it worked, but they transitioned quickly to putting down solar panels instead. Another problem is that the concentration of heat from all the mirrors would literally fry birds who flew in the path of the reflections. Nonetheless, it’s an incredible and effective science, and it works, however there are complications and inefficiencies that tend to ruin its potential.
You’re right. The solar water towers aren’t as efficient with energy production as originally thought. And lots of cost towards Maintanance of constantly rotating mirrors.
Instant fried chicken
@@cycleoflife7331 exactly lol
birds don't get fried. that's a myth. if you actually watch the video, the focal point is a meter infron of the mirrors. and you can't just instantly fry anything with a mirror.
@@cycleoflife7331 hahahahah🤣
In the early 1980's I had a solar water heater on my roof. It tracked the sun with parabolic mirrors. The same as in this video, only a lot smaller. Side note it also made shade on my roof and kept the house cooler.
@Gary Tompkins: Nice! That is sometimes referred to as "passive" solar in my experience. It is commonplace, in areas such as Taiwan, to observe water storage tanks on roofs with similar goals in mind! However, it is prevalent to utilize on demand water heaters in such areas for showers and such, so the water storage tanks on roof tops are more to provide free pre-heating, lower operating costs, and as an added benefit: better water pressure due to gravity's effects!
That type of attention to detail can be done everywhere and while the energy wins are not jaw dropping, "everything counts in large amounts" small gains add up over time!
Ha! Love the DM reference.
@@grey5626 " It tracked the sun with parabolic mirrors. "
@@grey5626 no, it is active solar, passive solar is things that don't use tracking systems or need to be messed with after installation like south facing windows, and awnings that are long enough to completely block the noonday sun in the summer, but are short enough to let it in during the winter.
Did it use true parabolic mirrors or cylindrical parabolic mirrors? The latter would be a lot cheaper. Did it use metallic mirrors? Again, a lot cheaper.
Fun fact: Using mirrors to concentrate light is not mutually exclusive with using photovoltaics. Concentration photovoltaics is also a thing, where you use PV cells that are optimized for far more light than conventional photovoltaics. For that matter, there are photovoltaic/thermal hybrid systems out there that use a thermal transfer fluid to cool the PV cells.
There are many many flavors of solar power :)
Amazing there are even Moon powered ovens in use today! Not large scale, though interesting and I do wondering about what a scaled up utility system can absorb from the Moon light?
Photovoltaic cells are usually somewhat heat sensative, so you need to cool the cells, and seperate the infra red light from the rest(ideally using a reflective filter that points at a concentrated solar thermal genorator) since lower frequencies aren't useful for most photovoltaic cells and still produce heat.
Would be awesome if the price point of high temp PV cells came down in price. Is interesting seeing where people have placed heat exchangers on the back of solar panels to use that energy for water or radiant heating.
Also, photovoltaics might be better for small scale, roof top projects, but where there's land available maybe the heat variant is better? Either way, they can coexist
But they have temprature limitation. Can they go to 1000s° and store energy?
My first job when I was 15 was repairing heliostat controllers that moved mirrors to track the sun to do something similar for a powerplant outside Barstow, CA. I loved this video so much, Thank you!
Thanks~~~~
You might like this one too… consider total cost of maintenance of the CSP, can be epic failure ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
That has to be the coolest job for a teenager, ever...
A thorium reactor would take up way less space, generate overwhelmingly more power, and help us with our research into developing better methods of space propulsion. China is already building them. A comparison study would be great.
Fusion power is becoming more relevant because of advances in science
Need to stop the unnecesarry friction between countries n start working together.. why spend trillions of dollars on "defense" program???
A thorium reactor would also be much more expensive and come way too late to the game. We need to decarbonize energy production today, not in 10+ years with experimental never tested in real production reactors. They would come too late and be too uncertain.
@@jomsies Nuclear energy is sustainable, especially if we use all of the uranium from our nuclear warheads. We have enough uranium reserves to power our entire species for 200 years with nuclear fission without the need to mine anymore, and by that time we would have nuclear fusion to swap over to. Fusion is the future, but we need to convert to gen 4 nuclear reactors now, as well as using other sustainable energy sources like wind, hydroelectric, and solar where it's applicable.
@@lilithva9111 people say nuclear energy isn't "sustainable" but it is close to it. When we run out of uranium as you say something better should be available. And if it's not, well not our problem😂
Solution is there, but people are so scared of it. Radiation is scrutinized nowadays just because of Japan and Tsjernobyl
Something that wasn't covered, but which seems compelling to me, is that CSP, unlike PV, does not strictly rely upon heavy metals and a toxic manufacturing process.
ruclips.net/video/sp2jFRr599s/видео.html
But are far more expensive than PV. The economics actually cripples these designs.
PV relies on vast amounts of coal with attendant pollution but also Chinese death camps, but unlike CSP,PV actually makes a tiny bit of electrical power.there are still csp operating but not one met benchmarks.
Total cost of maintenance economics of CSP has been a $1B failure - ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
Infini_Ryu 💯 correct, these have been economic FAILURES! Physics girl misinformation. ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
My son and I drove past these facilities about 10 years ago. Up to that point I had never heard of it, so it was amazing!
I saw the one outside Las Vegas too from the highway… so impressive. Sad to hear it failed: ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
I saw on the discovery channel recently that place was shut down. Too much maintenance keeping the mirrors clean and other issues. Cost per kilowatt hour was up to $ 1.20 while most of us pay 7-8 cents a kilowatt hour.
I saw "Planet of the Humans," a Michael Moore-produced film last year; it's time to watch it again. It was shouted down by those who didn't like it attacking their sacred cows in renewable energy industry.
Some of these CSPs are the like the wings of Icarus, burnt and melted in the sun. Epic fail ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
I'm a middle school science teacher, so happy to share your videos with my students to inspire them about where their place can be in energy solutions!
Permanently destroying hectares of plant and animal habitat can't be seriously thought of as a solution. I thought that this was what we were trying to avoid in the first place.
@@anthonymorris5084 yes this issue is so troubling and it's part of the equation
Fried birds galore.
I really love your “as they say in the industry… They don’t, but they should” jokes in the past few videos. Gets a laugh out of me every time😂
A physics minor girl new to solar mirrors??? Do they hand out diplomas at street corners nowadays? To top it off she thinks she's entitled to an opinion in her green psychosis nonsense.
The only solution to our energy challenge is nuclear power - fast reactors in particular. Solar and wind are complete nonsense.
What should they say in the industry about the smell of vaporized bird, bat, and moth?
@@RUclips_Stole_My_Handle_Too at first, borium was the best element for nuclear power plants .. Yet.. In the end they chose uranium..
LOBBY
LOBBY
LOBBY..
@@RUclips_Stole_My_Handle_Too Almost no one here would be new to solar mirrors, but i bet +98% of the people on this coment section even if they have a physics degree have never been on such power plants
@@RUclips_Stole_My_Handle_Too this type of comment is so useless. Please do something that actually help fix our environmental crisis, thanks!
This was great, I shared it with a bunch of mates, and it made me feel so much hope for the future. Thank you for the work you and your team put in to making it!
I remember these from family holidays in Spain, early nineties I think. Even in the mid of day the tower would look like it was getting hit by a thousand spotlights, it was so bright.
Simple and effective technology we need more of.
Awesome video. At 7:38 you said, "I came into this entire series being like, we're going to learn about the best technology and that's what's going to go in everywhere." I think this supports the idea that there is no "one size fits all" solution to generating power. In places like Death Valley, this is a no brainer. In the North Sea, wind is really good. In Iceland, geothermal is awesome. There are also areas where nuclear is the clear answer. The logical answer is to use what is best, but we get into trouble when the people who decide what to use, don't care if it is the best solution.
Perfectly said bro!!!
Absolutely true!
That's cool. I didn't know some of the towers can hold heat.
First!
More like hot
Time to setup a miniature tower at your garage..or may be a next project after your electric hummer..or may be setup up one in parallel so that it can charge the car in the night. Oh wait you already have batteries that store power from solar.
your head also
I didn't know some of them couldn't hold heat lol. We all learned something new :)
Yes. I think we need to get off the “one solution” idea. As we’ve seen with our dependence on fossil fuels, when we put all our eggs in one bucket… well, it’s not great. Solar, wind, hydro, etc… and new, innovative sources. Storage is equally important.
Great video and thanks for the information!
Exactly! This specialized myopic “one solution for all” (new world order type) grandstanding is doomed to fail ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
I think that nuclear fission is by far our best bet for ubiquitous, on-demand power. Fusion is actually coming along pretty nicely too.
Fantastic.... Really enjoying your channel... Thank you so much for all the effort you put into these videos, greatly appreciated.
From what I remember there were more or less 3 reasons I remember as to why this isn't used as much compared to PV, despite it being able to fix one of the most important problems with renewables: intermittency.
These problems are:
1) Cost: CSP costs around 3-4 times what PV costs, so that immediately isn't really great. If we can get storage costs low enough, PV+storage is also more interesting.
2) Geographical limitation: You can't just place these plants everywhere, the efficiency reduces a lot depending on the available sunlight. And ofcourse you need space and lots of it. With PV you can if need be place it in smaller units in a same location to avoid obstacles, elevation differences etc. aren't that much of a problem, with CSP this can be more of a problem. Another problem here is that CSP isn't usually located close to the main energy users, so you possibly need to install connection wires etc too. With PV you can place them on the roofs, car parks, nearby fields, ... limiting these kind of connection costs.
3) Water usage: These mirrors need to be kept clean. This often requires water use to do so. The problem is that these systems usually are in more arid places where water is more valuable. Ofcourse you might have ways to get around this, but they will usually be less effective or more costly. This was for example one of the controversies with CSP plants in Morocco that were subsidies by the EU, I believe.
Does CSP has a place in the grid mix? Yes, I think they definitely will play a role. Are they likely to become one of the main sources/compete with PV? Doubtfull. They might be usefull for energy intensive industries that could possibly be build around them and then either you use their storage to keep these industries going 24/7 or it is used to help balance the grid in the evening/at night.
If you were to ignore things like costs, political stability (for example northern Africa region), ... , CSP would likely be the best source to get us fully renewable. in fact they are probably one of the only renewable sources that could completely on its own get us to 100% renewable; No battery storage, no PV, wind, hydro, ... needed, just CSP. But it would be expensive and you'd need to use very long connections and the losses that go with it.
All of which are reasons to go nuclear rather than solar or wind. ;)
@@throwaway692 I only talked about CSP and somehow your conclusion of this one topic is 'Nuclear because wind and solar not good'? Honestly CSP might, if scaled well, be just as good if not better than nuclear imo. Ofcourse this is based on nuclear currently used build. Thorium might change that, but first we'll need to have a modern thorium reactor operating for several years.
Would it be possible to use a compound other than water to clean the mirrors? Possibly mixing it with something like acetone to keep them clean but not siphon too much water from local cities
@@fflam1383 Honestly I don't know. But we are talking about a lot of mirrors that need to be kept clean from things like dust etc.
@@MDP1702 CSP is solar. Solar is not reliable 24/7. Nuclear power is. QED.
How do they transfer the heat from the sand to water?
How do they store the sand?
How do they move the hot sand around?
What kind of sand is it?
I am surprised you don't already know this.
@@awkward-stranger Why does it surprise you?
Yeah, she seems to gloss over the details a lot in this series. But maybe it's meant more for children? Not sure who the target audience is.
Same here, I think a lot of explanation is missing from the sand part of the video.
This video is so awesome and it connected so many dots beyond just the initial answer to the question that caught my attention in your videos title
Any coverage on the negative traits? I heard that these powerplants need natural gas to heat up in the morning. Also the concentrated solar beams burn wildlife flying through them and there are problems with broken mirrors littering the ground.
Also not discussed is the amount of maintenance and material needed to keep the mirrors clean. Efficiency drops quickly with dust and dirt settling on them. It takes water....lots and lots of water. Something not exactly abundant in dry sunny climates.
These negative traits can be fixed and are not permanent. If there’s any trait that is worth mentioning, it’s those that are inherent in the design. I’m pretty sure these bright engineers are fully aware there are broken mirrors on the ground. It’s all a matter of systemically solving the problem as opposed to inefficiently cleaning it up as you go.
@@ClaireLoprensa So only the negative traits that you deem worthy of mentioning are allowed? And apparently all you have to do is "solve the problem", right? So, why don't they just "solve the problem" if it's so damn easy? Your ignorance is an amazing feat.
@@calvin99991 I'm sure there's another way besides water
@@ClaireLoprensa Pretty sure when the bird flies through and drops to the ground in a smoking pile of feathers, it's permanent.
This series has been so enlightening! I've really enjoyed the way you've introduced us to all these different solutions and compared them while keeping it easy enough to understand. This stuff is important but intimidating and often overwhelming, so I've really appreciated having you as a guide :)
you could build this mirror in every desert, it would still never be enough energy, and i don't even mention all the rare minerals we need
Solar tower power plants can have benefits for plants and animals there. Under the mirrors, evaporation is reduced. That means plants have more water available to grow and more plants mean more food for animals. Deserts usually mean to much sun and too little water, so those mirrors remove the liminting factor for plant growth.
Mirrors consist mainly of aluminium and glass, so they are constructed from the most abundant elements on the planet. We have more than enough of the necessary materials to cover all deserts with those kind of plants, and those would provide more energy than the world currently needs. We wouldn't even need every desert. And the bigger we build them, the cheaper and more efficient storage we can have because of the square-cube law. Storing the heat with molten salt can allow electricity production 24/7 without needing fossil fuels, but unfortunately those power plants right now are only built with no storage or only a very small storage tank. The storage is not as efficient as lithium-ion, but up to 100 times cheaper.
It's a lie
@@slaytronic yup, birds get insta-fried. Made me wonder if I could weaponize this technology for home defense...during the day anyway. lol
If only she covered the total economic cost and how these have been failures 🤷♂️ ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
As I traveled 2 days ago from San Diego to Las Vegas I was amazed by how shiny these structures were. I thought: What a great subject for Physics Girl and/or Veritassium to talk about. Now my mind is completely boggled by the fact that 4 days ago this video was posted 😂🤯.
I was impressed by them as well… may have also been in Gattaca? Sadly it FAILED ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
Just did a whole capstone project on heliostats for a senior design class and it was so interesting, some companies have been able to hit prices as low as 100 per meter squared for heliostat fields which is crazy to me
When I lived in Las Vegas and would sometimes take a road trip furthest West, I would drive by this exact solar power plant! I always marveled at it's sea of mirrors, and was super curious about it. Thanks for the education Physics Girl!
Really appreciate this series. There is so much hype about things it’s hard to sort it out at times. A basic overview is sure helpful for some of us idiots.
This series is BS.
There’s NO MENTION of the solution to ALL OUR ENERGY CONCERNS.
THORIUM REACTORS!!
PG is a fraud.
@ivan schafeldt greetings i am Lord teleportdinero i am friend not foe
The smartest people hiding behind 'us idiots'. I see you mate😂
Bottom line mostly useless.
have to think more widely about the entire system and costs though, else still risk failure ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
The special shape of the mirrors is also referred to as "parabolic troughs" they're used here in Pakistan to heat up water in tubes in order to produce steam and drive the boards of a small turbine.
These parabolic troughs make a lot more sense than the big reflective CSR systems. For a start they don't kill as many birds.
They say that around 8 min… 🤪😂😂👍
I was fan of you from last 3 years
And you never disappointed me
Having seminar next week -> went through your channel -> got the topic
And ready for the best presentation 🥰🤩
Thank-you
Amazing. Thnx for the high production and sharing this info with us.
It always amazed me how nearly all of our power generation is identical once you get to the "water is turned into steam" part. The only difference is where the heat to boil the water comes from.
Well, water is cool! Get it? ;-)
Could've even gone with, "(heating) water is tight", considering the pressure … okay, I'll see myself out now.
@@jamielondon6436 LMAO BRUH
I didn't know that much about environmental technology before this series. This series is much informative and interesting at the same time .
I would check out "Planet of the Humans" to get some balance in this discussion...
Then check out MEER Reflection Project to regain some hope, as it's probably the ONLY technology that's sufficient at this late of a stage in the catastrophic heating taking place as we speak.
And share the message because we will need the whole planet to get on board and support it!
@@MattAngiono nuclear energy will always be more environmentally friendly than renewables will ever be.
You don't know much now, this is just nonsensical corporate propaganda.
With solar energy possibly causing MORE drivers of climate change and CO2 emissions, I'll take a hard pass.
@@michaelverdouw9551 sort of... it requires A LOT of caveats...
The waste from nuclear is FAR worse so it must be managed appropriately, and that is not the case for many current plants.
Constant maintenence is required to keep the waste from leaking into the environment, which takes energy and humans.
Only when the waste is permanently stored without the need for additional energy and effort is your statement true.
Right now, if civilization fails, we will unfortunately end up with a toxic earth.
The risks of this can't be understated.
Once we can completely rule out the problem of waste, and deal with what is currently requiring maintenence, then I would agree with your statement.
We should have a much larger effort to deal with these issues, so if the power goes out, there's no catastrophe.
All development of new nuclear would certainly need to mitigate these risks of waste entirely, but that's certainly not the cheapest, nor the quickest way to satisfy our energy needs.
However, I agree it should be considered for the long term, assuming we take this all into account.
I worked at both plants. Ivanpah was definitely the coolest and I was there from start to finish as a pipefitter. The blow down and testing was crazy. The Mojave project was cool but it's not anything close to how ivanpah was. There is soo much more to these project than you were able to explain. Ivanpah has a gas heater to maintain the water at a reasonable temp so that the towere can start working as soon as there is light. It is also not steam being produced, it's super heated steam. It is 320 degrees when it goes through the venturi and every drop of water expands in volume by 1000 times, which produces the pressure needed to turn the turbine. It's really crazy when there is no need for heat exchangers. It does need a high content of salt in the water but then needs a filtration process after it re condenses. Message me back if you have any questions about the build. Like I said it was unique. Only the second one in the world at the time as far as working plants go. Also it was built by bectal company the Company that built the hoover dam.
This is so brilliant! Thank you for enlightening!
Would be nice at the end of the series if you do a summary chart showing power efficiency, cost effectiveness, kinds of contracts that apply to selling each type of energy.
Also include fossil fuels.
And don't forget to add reliability, abundance, and cost.
Yeah, post that.
I dare you.
@@Conflict_Boardgaming I'm a petroleum engineer and I don't think you're going to like the findings about abundance. (Hint, the sun is functionally infinite).
@@CSpottsGaming And I don't think you will like the reliability, efficiency, or cost of wind, solar, and "mirrors".
Meanwhile, nuclear wipes the floor with both.
@@greyrifterrellik5837 Thorium Molten Salt Reactors in particular
I love how first I learnt of such a tower was via Fallout New Vegas :D
i saw the title and instantly said to my self on no not another Helios 1 time to get the c finder from some random kid for 20 caps so i can rain hellfire apon thine enemy
I always learn a lot! Thanks for sharing. Hope you are feeling better. 🙏🌸🤓
Im honestly loving learning about all these renewable energy sources, it makes me excited!
All these CSP were failures being decommissioned.
Exciting yes! Just think big picture total costs and not myopic specialization only, leads to EPIC failure ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
Paul Bedichek yes, I was hopeful but just learned about that too. Icarus wings burnt by the sun! ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
I love that you have SUCH a curious mind; that you still LOVE to learn about new stuff!
These are great...for wasting land, frying birds in mid air, messing with migratory birds flight paths...
Yes, this tech has been around for a while, but output vs land usage, mixed with stability and maintence, make this a relatively inefficient form of power generation.
But it's cheaper than solar cells. Into a price comes down on the solar cells.
@@dueymiller617 The price has come down on solar cells, they are now cheaper. Much cheaper, as in substantially cheaper per unit energy even when you factor in the lifetime cost of batteries for storage(roughly half the price if you have enough LiFePO4 batteries to back up power for 24 hours).
For electricity generation, I totally agree. Solar PV (+ battery storage) is clearly the better option.
But there's still one use case for solar thermal plants: Process heat; e.g. for the chemical industry, for hydrogen production (via the sulfur-iodine cycle), for the steel + cement industry, or for seawater desalination. Maybe that'll make sense if they manage to lower the costs (by automating the construction + maintenance of solar tower facilities).
Another great source of process heat is nuclear - with a special focus on high-temperature reactors and SMRs.
Regarding the other contra arguments (besides costs): As far as I know, those solar towers are only built in the desert. There you have plenty of space available.
Land usage is a point if it means the destruction of ecosystems. But the desert is just a huge area of sand (with only a minimum of vegetation + fauna). So it shouldn't matter if we build things on top of this sand.
Frying birds? In the desert, there aren't many birds. Maybe some few vultures, but that's it.
And consider that we would only use a small portion of the desert for solar (no matter if PV or CSP), maybe 5-10%. That means that still 90-95% of the desert area would stay untouched.
These mirrors and the heat they generate is the reason there's a drought.
The monsoon that used to come from Nevada and Arizona storm turn back and away from California.
The High Pressure as Weather Casters call it : keep the storms going up to Canada 🇨🇦 with the occasional drop to the Bay area. This is and I hope an unintentional Weather Modification
There are a lot of things for us all to worry about nowadays, and it seems like Physics Girl is talking about the big, big ones on my mind that tend to fill me with dread and powerlessness. I like to think it isn't just being presented with work I didn't know was happening and the "helpers" as Mr. Rogers would put it, but also the fact that she perfectly nails the tone of hope and promise, without overstepping to the point of complacency. Physics Girl, not sure if that was something you worked hard on, but it was perfect and just what I needed right now to get back to solving my little corner of problems. Thank you.
YES!! Molten Salt is part of the solution; as in a molten salt reactor(MSR) using thorium and/or in a liquid fluoride(i.e. salt) thorium reactor(LFTR)
We had a few of these in the southern Central Valley of California, they used the tower style. Now they’re just broken mirrors in the fields.
And remember that photovoltaic cells degrade over time.
Its a disaster, creating waste, and destroying landscapes. 1,000s of tons of broken glass. Plus the fuel needed to manufacture that glass = pollution.
Renewable energy has not improved the climate on iota, cheaper current from taxpayer paid for turbines backed up by natural gas and coal that don't pay for their pollution edges out nuclear which is the only always on low carbon source hydro has practically vanished here in the West with the drought caused by shutting nuke plants.
Keep thinking and innovating, but BIG PICTURE / total cost - else these are myopic EPIC fails ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
7:28 Physics Girl missed mentioning that… why don’t we see more of these failed CSP plants?? 🤔🤦♂️
"They produce more energy than what is needed. That is the problem"
Suffering from success😂😂
Are you trying to con people into believing that that one installation will power the entire United States? That installation displaces a small-town and probably couldn't run a small town oversized that it displaces. Plus it only works on sunny days not at night not in Cloudy weather. Only a fool or a con man would call that success.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 Bruh, it was a joke🤦♂️
@@earnestleesaddened3779 brrrruhhhhhhh
@@firulais3065 bro what?
Thanks for that series, it was awesome and I learned so much.
Thanks~~~~
I loved this one, as it addressed the area which no one else has been talking about. Storage solutions :)
There is some really cool development in high temperature liquid metal batteries. A professor from MIT is leading the field.
Storage solutions can also be costly to maintain, not economically viable ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
Helios One looking great in this video! Let's just make sure the C-Finder stays hidden 👀
nice
FNV fans here
Can't help but think about Fallout NV seeing this. "They asked me how well I understood theoretical physics. I said I had a theoretical degree in physics. They said welcome aboard"
The Helios One was based on that power plant, wasn't it?
As I remember the solar power plant from a video game of 2010, it kinda puts into perspective how this technology is not brand new. Yet not a lot of people talk about it.
@@Diekyl The lobby for fossil fuels is still very strong.
@@cartermariano Yeah it was!! Idk why but Helios one was always one of my favorite spots in NV
🤣🤣🤣🫁🤣🤣🤣
I just discovered your channel and I'm hooked after only three videos! Your geeky enthusiasm is so infectious! You need to collaborate with DIY Solar Power with Will Prowse. Although his in-depth knowledge of consumer level solar power is amazing, it his infectious enthusiasm that keep us watching hours and hours of content! You two could change the entire world's view of consumer level solar technology!
Thanks so much for creating and sharing this educational and entertaining video. Great job.
FYI - recently I saw a scientific study about the effects of escaped hydrogen (H2) on global warming. The scientists argued that, if we are going to go with H2, which escapes anything that we can use today to store it, then we should understand what, if any effects that it might have on global warming. Every rose has its thorns, etc. Unfortunately, their study (from what I understand a first of its kind) seemed to show that escaped H2 has an even worse effect on global warming than CO2! Like any responsible scientist, they recommended additional studies on the subject before we decide which way to go.
Hope that each day you are feeling better than the day before.🙏
Mirrored solar actually has a lot of operational challenges long-term, in addition to the perennial solar-energy production vs. demand mismatch. There are some real maintenance headaches, and they kill a lot of birds. Ivanpah, in San Bernandino County, wipes out around 6,000 birds a year. Hydrogen production may help solve one small piece of that puzzle, but that is all.
6000 birds a year, so around 25 cats worth of birds. I'd say that is a worthwhile compromise.
@@sevret313 Responsible outdoor-cat owners rarely have bird kills since the cats have bell collars, and especially not many of the types of birds like raptors that are taken out by the focused heat radiation.
Thank you for making this series.
It's like the last 5 years of my RUclips nightly binging comprised into one series!
I have toured the Ivanpah facility. It is one of the coolest things I have ever seen in person. You needed sunglasses to look at the towers due to the intense sunlight reflecting off of them. That style of plant is unlikely to be the future of concentrated solar. The cost of the facility was exorbitant and the output is not particularly high. It is also very difficult to control the mirrors and labor intensive to clean and replace mirrors (there are just so many of them). Also, the peak output can only be reached when the sun is high in the sky with perfect conditions. When we toured the facility, the output was down 10%+ due to dust in the air from a dust storm that happened the day before. As much as I would like this type of facility to be the future, they just aren't cost effective.
Awesome video Dianna. Brilliantly made as always and filled with knowledge. Thank you. I have one request though...... Please don't succumb to the youtube stats monster by adding thumbnails to your videos where you look silly (for whatever reason). Please. You are so much more than that. Rather use a thumbnail of that gorgeous smile of yours. Thank you once again for your amazing contribution to the internet.
I'm so glad I finally know what those are. I was in a bus riding across the Negev Desert and I saw what looked to be the eye of Sauron in the distance. I never told anyone about my experience because I thought nobody would believe me or know what it was. Since that day I was always curious about that and thought about it every now and then, but I never came up with anything. Thank you for finally giving me closure on this clean energy phenomenon :D
This was an awesome and mind-opening video series, Dianna! We’re glad to have been a part of this renewable energy road trip with you and that you got to take the Mirai along for the ride.
Awesome.
Thanks for the sponsorship! I didn't even know what a hydrogen powered car looked like before this series!
hi toyota
Bets are open!!
How long ( in half hours ) will it take her for a response or aknowlegement to Toyota's comment ?
My guess is 2.5h
This was great! Thank you.
Wasn't this thechnology shown to be an epic failure? In theory it makes sense but in reality the plant never met the production goals of 50%, the best they ever got was around 20%. It turns out working with molten salt has its drawbacks. The plant only ran for about 9 months and could never produce enough revenue to meet basic maintenance cost so it had to be shutdown. Not trying to bash green technology but I am wondering if they even bothered piloted this technology before scaling up. Here is a link to the video ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
@D. Johnston 702 if you look at the dates... the plant failed in late'ish 2019 [how quick do you think info was published about this? Same second it failed? Or did it take time. This video was Aug 2021, and the video discussing the project failed Man Kev linked was Feb 2022. How much info was around in 2020 or 2021 during the peak of covid? How many people were touring plants then and discussing it, and talking with people involved in the project?? Prob none. As covid restrictions lifted more reports and tours of the project would be available.
IT IS EARILLY COOL LOOKING FROM THE AIR TOOO!! I lived in LA for years and flying to Vegas you would fly over it and it looked like a spotlight from the air a HUUUUGE spotlight..lol
I just had to say that I appreciate that all the measurement in this video is metric. Thank you
The best part is when you fly by these, they blind you from every direction (I know, first world pilot problems), AND all the free, already cooked birds it roasts. Pretty cool.
So, they're basically destroying local fauna? huh
Free Colonel Sanders? Cool!
Do you have a source on the affected wildlife claim?
@@greensteve9307 Look it up on RUclips
Love your positive energy , keep sharing you're filling a lot of blank spaces in my overactive brain it's great :-)
@4:32 you were asking about the heat exchange I guess. The heat is transferred through tubes. They don’t mix with each other, but the heat transfer fluid flow through one long tube. The heat then gets transferred to the long tubes carrying water and converts it to steam.
One thing to understand about steam turbines are, they spin really fast. The revs are high. Steam comes in at high pressure, spins the turbine and then a condenser is used on the output to cool down the steam to water making the pressure low. This improves the efficiency of the turbine. Easy way of saying, high force on one side and low on the other side makes the turbine spin really well.
Very interresting, I am working as a maintenance engineer in a waste burning factory that produces electricity and steam. It always delivers a consistent amount of energy.
In solar and wind energy production it was always a bit more complicated to produce when there is no sun or wind or to store energy when you produce too much electricity. So this sand is quite interresting being able to store over a thousand degrees.
A couple of things that I do notice for the CSP plants is the following:
- You can only place them in hot and sunny locations, so you can only provide cities and towns that are close to it.
- What huge land masses you need to produce relatively little energy. Was it only 200.000 households of electricity generated on such huge amount of land? There are over 7 billion humans, lets say average household of 3 that leaves us with over 2 billion households and we still need to power the big power consuming industry, agriculture companies, etc. etc.. If we really want to go for 0 emission we will need to find something else to generate enormous amounts of clean energy without cutting down our forrests or sacrificing farmland for solar parks.
It's sad to see the governments use the term clean energy and cut down forests just to place an ocean of solar panels and wind mills that tower over the tallest buildings in the area. They could use the roofs of the industrial buildings and creat more forests to cool down the planet a bit. Inlcuding the forests absorb CO2. More green in cities.
One thing I loved about this series was seeing how genuinely excited the workers at these places were to be showing off this awesome technology
How many tens of thousands of square miles do we need to waste on mirror farms for something that only works during sunny days? Are we supposed to make huge batteries consisting of poisonous chemicals that need to be replaced constantly? I think you should curb your emotions and think logically. You sound like an Eskimo that buys ice cubes from a Salesman.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 It works in the winter, too, obviously; It just doesn't get as hot. It probably even works on an overcast day to a certain extent. Germany has the greatest use of photovoltaic in the world and their climate is pretty much overcast during most of the year.
@@Nilguiri how does it work at night? How good is Germany's photovoltaic usage? 100% 50% 30%? I don't see Germany bragging about how they're doing so good. I suppose you would settle for a car that worked okay some of the times when the Sun is up. No, I'm not settling.
@@earnestleesaddened3779 What a wonderful anecdote! Who are you, Donald Trump?
Ever heard of Google or Wikipedia? It took me about 3.5 seconds to find this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_Germany and it turns out that they are second, behind China, not first, as I previously thought. I learned something new, did you? Yeah, nah.
And I could not give a flying f*** if you're "settling" or not, Cletus. Stay in school.
@@Nilguiri I greatly enjoyed those last two comments that you deleted. Personal attacks are always bread-and-butter for the losers in the world. No I'm not Donald Trump but you could very well be sleepy Joe Biden. Thanks again for the amusing replies that you were too ashamed to leave in public.
Your videos just keep getting better!
Awesome video TPG!!! I'm gonna watch the our vids in the series.
My main question was the issue of needing water in areas that don't naturally have it and that it's a need for the people who live in those arid areas. It sounds like the systems that use water are in somewhat of a closed system and that other, non-water materials are also being used. That so neat. Considering that there are vast swaths of basically 'unusable' land all across the Southwest, this really seems like the way to go.
So if you see the cooling tower, it is a evaporative design, meaning it will continuously draw water. I don’t remember where the supply was from, but this site is out on a dry lake bed. If the site had an ACC or Air Cooled Condenser, that would draw very little water as it would be a closed loop.
You should check out the Tonopah "basically failed" solar project. Oh, and you forgot to mention how many birds burst into flames when they pick the wrong flight path.
yes, because all of the sudden team coal and oil cares about birds
Billions of birds have died because of the use of oil and coal.
Get back to us when you acknowledge that little fact.
This is so awesome! All the possibilities! 🤩
You have the BEST job :) keep up the good work!
ruclips.net/video/aJOjw9Y1ISM/видео.html centuries-old mysteries of the Sun. You will love this
Plant, operational, and maintenance cost? Efficiency? How is it compares to wind, solar, hydro?
the mirrors don't last very long... I've heard only around 5 - 6 years... (I'm no expert though)
@@vishaljoy6802 I thought so too because the whole system have to deal with high heat and mechanical moving parts.
@@Somagarn Yep. And dust and wind and stuff.
Actually I was doing some research and I found this documentary...
You see "renewable energy" (solar, wind and biomass)... is a huge scam... I know this sounds like an anti-vaxxer but please refer this video:
ruclips.net/video/Zk11vI-7czE/видео.html&ab_channel=MichaelMoore
The solar mirrors are at 31:09
You will be horrified by what you see and understand that we are believing a lie...
And pls reply to this comment. We need real debate and discussion.
CSP LCOE usually is around 110-140 $/MWh, for comparison this is around 30-45 $/MWh for a similarly sized large scale pv plant,
50$/MWh for onshore wind,
70-100$/MWh for offshore wind,
45-60$/MWh for coal plants (though this price is ever increasing due to taxes, environmental demands, coal cost, ...),
gas 70-90/100 $/MWh.
Hydro is difficult since it depends a lot on the scale etc. but the larger scales hydro usually is around 20-35$/MWh.
Nuclear again is a difficult one. Old nuclear was around 25-35$/MWh, but new ones tend to be much more expensive. Recent LCOE numbers put it between 100-180$/MWh, though 60-70$/MWh might be more correct.
@@vishaljoy6802 You did not just referenced Planet of the humans. That is one of the most disgracefull documentaries out there currently. It uses old outdated information and images, based on based on a subjective personal experience and often if not misinforming at least misleading its audience. Even if they brought it out around 2015 it would be barely acceptable, releasing it in 2020 with no new information since 2014 or so is just unacceptable, especially since renewables progressed massively between 2015 and 2020. One of their experts that was filmed being very sceptical even before they released it had change his opinion to mildly or even very optimistic.
Specifically to the solar part:
1) they said solar panels were around 10% efficient and around 10 years of operating. The 10% was around 10-15 years ago true, currently it is around 19-20% on average. And the operating time was just bullocks, solar panels are aimed at an operational lifetime of around 25-30 years, they could even go longer than that, but at that point their output has been reduced beyond acceptable levels (60-70% of their original capacity) and replacing it with newer more efficient panels while recycling the old ones is a better option.
2) they showed a desolate area left behind after a solar farm was removed. One small problem with that. That farm was in a renovation stage. The old panels that had been there for decades and reached end of life were removed before they filmed and new more efficient panels were installed after they filmed at that location, so that desolate place doesn't even exist.
3) they also talked about an CSP in Nevada or California (I forgot where it was) and told about how it needed natural gas in the morning to spin it up. One small problem with that is that the plant was one of the first CSP plants, modern ones don't use natural gas at any point of their operation. Moreover what they don't mention is that even this first inefficient CSP plant reduced natural gas usage by more than 65% compared to a regular natural gas powerplant.
I can keep naming things about the documentary where they were misleading, or used too old information etc. but then I am going on for the next hour or more, so I'll just stick with this.
There were some good points, however these were overshadowed by the bad ones. Moreover these good points didn't offer nothing new at all. The main message of the documentary of focusing more on saving energy and resources by for example limiting usage etc. has been a core pillar of the green movement for decades.
The next thing is probably a bit more controversial. At the end they talk about overpopulation and that our population should shrink and that mostly the undeveloped world is the problem (at least in terms of growth), that is not a problem at all. We don't use too many resources due to overpopulation, we use too many resources due to the way we manage them and the large amount of resources that we waste. The earth can support several times the current population if we'd much better manage the resources. However I can understand if people were to disagree on this last point.
I really liked this deep dive series. Getting a really broad overview as well as some specific details was really entertaining, and I feel like I learned a lot!
I was thinking it was a very superficial and not a deep dive series, it showed some flawed engineering with dreams, some expensive ways of making or converting energy and missed out completely on something that covers 71 percent of the world.
@@maxnex7676 Yeah at 8:51 she says "the efficiency of it, the heat engine depends on the temperature of it and the hotter you can get the hot thing the more efficiency", who even talks like this? This was such a non-deep dive way of talking about the subject. First of all why is she assuming everyone will know what is the "heat engine" she is talking about here and then "the hot thing" being hotter in absolute terms doesn't matter much, it is the ratio ratio between the cold and the hot thing that matters, this video was as superficial as it could have been.
@@maxnex7676 There is no talk about the way the heat get transferred other then "in thousands of tubes ". and talking about saturated steam going into the turbine... really... really??.
First you never let saturated steam run into a turbine because you have a chance at condensation on your turbine rotors, eating away the material, you superheat it way above the saturation line.
Second if you run the HTF into the reboilers on sunrise, how do you not make the boiler burst from instant steam pressure inside the pipes, or just plain thermoshock because its 400 degrees celcius?
(I think i know this one, they heat it up first at night, you know, burning that good old natrual gas.)
third, does every tube inside the mirror expand halve a meter? i mean i hope you have wheels under those mirrors then.
It's a pretty video, nice pictures, but nothing of value is being told.
The biggest problem in many places is land availability. Must be nice when there is a whole unused desert after taking over a continent with force.
There’s enough space for all of us. No need for force
I am a graduating electrical engineering, I love this kind of knowledge, I hope someone hired me and work in that kind of world untill I die. Love from Philippines
First thing I have to say, I have mad respect for you. As to my reason for commenting, the problem with the plant outside of Las Vegas is that it is beyond expensive. Not including the operational cost, in order to see a pay off in 20 years, the cost per kilowatt has to be at least $1.30. If we compare that to photovoltaic being put on your roof, the 20 year payoff averages to about 8.5 cents per kilowatt at today's prices. Energy storage is the biggest issue in our goals towards renewables, and the sands idea does appear to be very interesting. Of course we have the future cost of what to do with the photovoltaic panels when they are no longer useful, which means that we need to work on a recycling technology as well. My fear with what we are seeing in green tech is not the tech as much as it is government being so eager to go green, that no one making the decisions is considering the steps to get there, and the challenges of waist in the future. Considering how many cars are on the road for instance, the idea that we can have 100% of drivers switch to electric cars, we would need to create enough power production to produce another 1,120 gigawatts per day. The worst part of that number is that it would mainly have to be produced during the night time. With all the new tech, it seems the best answer is nuclear. I am happy to see engineers figuring out new ideas, we just have to remember that cost has to be added to the equation. Cost and land.
you'd have said the same thing about offshore wind 20 years ago though and look how once the industry was established, and reached some scale the prices plummeted. nuclear is not cheap either
@@mralistair737 yes but the problem of the energy storage remains true. Here in Europe the countries invested hundreds of billions of euro in photovoltaic and offshore wind. Now that wind isn’t blowing blow, even sun is covered in some countries and natural gas price triple we have broken the price record for electricity. For a short period of time the UK has had the equivalent of 800€/MWh. Here in Italy 🇮🇹 we went from 50 €/MWh to over 150 €/MWh. (hope my comment is understandable)
Fantastic series, Physics Girl! Thanks!
The good is that I absolutely love your enthusiasm. I'm not sure when this video aired initially but you may want to update your research related to Ivanpah and Tonopah CSP's. Tonopah actually never met it's goal for output and NVE cancelled their Contract with Tonopah Thermosolar, the plant is curretnly idle. Ivanpah is similar and does not produce the amount of power that it was designed to produce. There has been dicussions to decommission it. The enviromentalists have fought these plants all the way as well. Google the Term "Streamer" It is related to the effect of birds flying thru the concentrated sunlight, the bird will actually spontaneously combust. Sorry for the bad news on these solar plants.
Don't be sorry the truth about these projects should be common knowledge so they can stopped being used as another social engineering tool. I'm all for a healthy planet, but don't the right way.
Nice video! I wonder how they keep those mirrors dust-free. Is that done by robots? Or do they have some technology to vibrate those mirrors, somewhat like the vibration technology in Olympus cameras to keep the sensor dust-free?
Nothing, and that is one of their main fails.
On this, I can’t. Too many birds are killed by flying into the mirror fields. They are literally burned in flight and die from the burns or the fall.
But this series of videos was great. Informative, relevant and well presented. Kudos.
They have video of birds being set on fire in flight.
I'm sure that's an easy solution. But the number of animals killed this way must surely be fewer than the number killed by, say, supertankers crisscrossing the ocean, roadtankers crisscrossing the country, oil spills, coal mining and transportation, etc etc.
@@jeffkeith637 so the many stripes out the few. Just like wind turbines. Killing thousands of birds and bats.
Because electricity to your computer is more important.
@@jeffkeith637 Oooookay, how does a supertanker or a road tanker kill birds? Runs over them? Coal mines!? Really? What, the canaries they (traditionally) use in the mine? Bwwaahaha.
@@assassinlexx1993 Damn skimpy. HALO is a basic human right.
I loved this. Thank you! 💗
I drive by these a lot, including the remote ones when going to the isolated desert peaks, so it was fun to get a more interactive presentation on this vs reading open file reports!
ruclips.net/video/sp2jFRr599s/видео.html
Are they still operating? the one outside Vegas was an EPIC fail recently due to costs ruclips.net/video/oiPSy2bKZkE/видео.html
Hi Diana. I saw you working with Mark (Brave Wilderness) on the electric eel video and thought I'd take a look at your stuff. So good. I grew up watching Johnny Ball doing science experiments on the BBC. I now have a daughter who'll be 10 in June and I think/hope she'll be into this. Iam going to show her some of your vids tonight and see if she enjoys them. Even if she doesn't I'll keep watching anyway. Iam not madly technically minded but very curious how stuff works. So anyway thanks and keep up the good work. Oh and be careful with the surfing!!
Michael (Hilsea, UK)
Easy storage is accomplished by pumping water uphill, and flowing it out through turbines later. Pumping molten salt is ridiculous. Great video. Thx
As an engineer in the utility scale solar industry, I'll highlight that heliostat systems like this were built when Photovoltaics were like 5x the price of today. CSP is not the future of renewables.
As an engineer in the utility industry who has also worked on PPAs with some of the facilities featured in the video, I can say that there have been several CSP plants built much more recently when PV prices were already pretty low (though they do keep getting cheaper). However, I agree with your conclusion; PV has already won the solar war. I'll have to look into this sand/particle tech but I doubt it will make a sizeable difference. The interesting thing is with storage. We are going to need so much of it that I don't think Li-ion is going to do the job. Possibly LiFePO4.
Came here to comment the same... PV won the holy war for the light, so some of projects like this are actually broke now.
@@fakljfklajf LiFeYPO4 is even better
awesome! that's so cool to hear that there is a solid option for storing solar energy during down times, fascinating to use temperature for that solution
Or just use nuclear.
Screw nuclear, we are trying to save our planet, not make it worse. An SCT or Newtonian telescope configuration of mirrors through a fresnel lens onto a ceramic target to heat the motive fluid, expanded through a Tesla turbine, we can generate the electricity a home needs plus store the heat in a brine tank to generate home heating or turbine steam at a home scale. Distributed system, selling excess into the grid, the perfect way to turn the scales on utilities. The beauty of a Tesla turbine is that it also operates as a compressor… as in for an AC system.
@@pseudotasuki More like use both in our transition
@@7sArts Yup, that'll work great in Buffalo in February.
@@7sArts "Screw nuclear, we are trying to save our planet, not make it worse."
So, bulldozing absolutely enormous swaths of land will make the planet... better?
I thought I knew a lot about renewables and energy storage but my mind was blown seeing your tour videos. I've change from 'We might be able to solve this' to 'We are going to solve this'. Thank you Diana for sharing this with us, so cool!
Thank you for another wonderful video!
I always look out for Ivanpah when I fly home to LA. Never thought about the stored energy capacity of CSP systems as an advantage over photovoltaics, that's pretty cool.
It’s not an advantage over PV because there are PV with energy storage as well. Typically they use batteries tho as storage. It’s just a technology to help alleviate the problem of reducing down time.
This was a excellent series. I am keenly interested in renewable energy, especially in vehicles. I hope you do more on this field of study, thank you from Canada,
It still amazes me why Australia doesn't have hundreds of miles of these types of plants for limitless energy!?
Imagine what that would do to the environment.
To busy mining everything and selling it off to the Chinese.
This is soooo exciting!!!!! Hope for the future!!!!
Thanks! You're super positive, logical video is what we need in these times! Thank you so much❤
This seems like the same thing they did for the Helios One in New Vegas.
There it is. It's been so long I couldn't remember the name. Definitely one of my favorite locations out of Fo3, New Vegas, or Fo4.
i was actually here for this exact comment
Possibly even the same place.
Amazing series! Sponsors should be lining up for you!!
Proud of my dad for being apart of this and for something so interesting in today’s society. He tells me everyday that renewable energy is the career path to get into seeing as it will be more dependent or valuable in the future.
I think it's not saturated steam but rather superheated steam. Because the water particles in saturated steam would impinge on the turbine blades and damage them. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the steam turbines that we work with use superheated steam
yeah the generators make saturated steam, but there are other parts that turn the saturated steam into super-heated steam. you right saturated steam would cause a lot of damage on the turbines.
Those "cage-like-thingies" are aptly called ladder cages, and a desgined to catch a limp body falling through.
TIL! I always wondered what those were for. The limp body aspect never occurred to me.
Us simpletons called them back scratchers 😂
@@seeker1287 It also allows you to rest against them if you are climbing a high distance. Usually a long continuous run isn’t allowed, so they will have platforms at various levels, so if you fall, it might only be 20 ft as opposed to 100’s
Loving your videos for I have learnt new things through your learnings. I am planning to go through some of your videos with my daughter to hopefully inspire her to learn too! would you consider a 3 part series like 5 mins each to inspire kids especially girls to learn?
I hope you inspire your daughter to think BIG and WIDE too, not myopic specialization like Icarus and fail like this did ruclips.net/video/ccO0_hSXMyM/видео.html
More important to learn to think critically, analyze total costs and not just subsidized ideas while ignoring risks of failure
After watching so many videos on various green energy technologies, I have come to the conclusion that there are of course, pros and cons to every green energy producing system that can be conceived. The one big con I see common across the board is the sheer amount of land (or water) surface area all these concepts have to utilize. If Fusion energy can ever become a reality, it will be the silver bullet to solving so many problems associated with other green energy technologies. But there again, that is just my opinion for what's it worth.
Australia would be a great place to start, or basically any country with huge deserts.