Inhabitat » Commercializing Solar Power with Molten Salt

By ramgarden

Inhabitat » Commercializing Solar Power with Molten Salt

Solar power plants have one problem: they can’t make power at night!  Until now.  Use inexpensive mirrors to focus the sun’s heat on a single tower full of salt.  Then pump the liquid hot salt to a water boiler to create steam that turns a turbine that turns a 500 Megawatt generator.  Who would have thought salt was the best way to store heat?  They will probably find something even better in a few years.  For now, we have something that is basically free and non-explosive and non-toxic so that’s good.

One Response to “Inhabitat » Commercializing Solar Power with Molten Salt”

  1. Saharan sun could power European supergrid « Operation Nerdblog Says:

    [...] over the southwest to give us clean power when we need it most (during the day).  We could use the molten salt idea to generate several hours worth (if not all night’s worth) of power at night.  If the molten [...]

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