Two Google efforts - solar thermal and high-altitude wind

San Fran Chron ^ | 11/28/2007 | David R. Baker

[Uncledave]

Google's tastes in alternative energy run the gamut from proven technologies to ideas that haven't left the lab. Two ideas the company already is exploring:

Solar thermal

One of the companies Google touted Tuesday, eSolar of Pasadena, develops solar power plants large enough to light a small city.

The basic idea is simple enough. An array of mirrors focuses sunlight on a tower, generating intense heat. That heat, carried by a liquid flowing through the tower, is used to generate steam. The steam turns a turbine and produces electricity.

... But interest in the technology languished for years when electricity prices were low.

Now utilities such as Pacific Gas and Electric Co. are signing contracts with companies eager to build the next generation of solar thermal plants...

The challenge is to lower the cost. With eSolar's technology, the towers are mass-produced and shipped to construction sites largely assembled, and the mirror arrays follow a standard design. That should cut installation time and cost. The company boasts that it can design plants ranging from 25 megawatts to 500 megawatts, enough to power 375,000 homes.

High-altitude wind

The problem with windmills is that sometimes the wind simply doesn't blow. But climb a mile or two into the atmosphere, and the wind turns into a constant, powerful force.

Alameda startup Makani Power, another Google partner, wants to tap that energy. The company won't say how, refusing to divulge details of its technology and plans. But several Makani executives boast experience with designing kites and sails.

Other researchers have proposed kites and helicopter-like machines that can stay aloft for weeks or months. The idea is to create a flying turbine that would send its power back to Earth through some kind of tether.

[VanShuyten]

I heard this morning that Google was capitalized at $200 BILLION!! What do they have that’s worth that? Thank you, Al Gore.

[marktwain]

“High altitude wind speeds are in the 100mph vicinity, and fairly constant.”

Nice try, but simply not true. Winds up to 20,000 feet are often below 20 mph.

[ASOC]

I think they use a different type mirror system here

[Uncledave]

No doubt in some spots the wind isn't so strong all the time. But you'd want to put these things where average wind is high. The jet streams are always snaking around in different spots, granted, but from what I've poked around on the web there's plenty of high speed, high altitude wind. Here's one guy:

120 Kt winds at 12,000 feet are rare, but not unheard of. An unusually strong mid-level pressure system might produce such winds over a small region. But the upper-level jet stream, usually found above 18,000 feet can reach speeds above 100 mph regularly, and at altitudes of 30,000 feet, 200 mph wind velocities occasionally occur. The "average" jet stream windspeed in wintertime over the northern hemisphere is probably 110-140 kts, at altitudes of 20 to 40 thousand feet.

Wendell Bechtold, meteorologist Forecaster, National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office, St. Louis, MO.

http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/wea00/wea00068.htm

[fightinJAG]

So when do the libs start hating google like they hate Wal-Mart?