peter melia’s Recent Comments

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  Solar Tower.

  First of all, Funnels.
  The first century, at least, of our modern world was enabled by funnels, in steamships and trains. Without those funnels it is possible that our modern civilisation would never have got going. We have only to look at old pictures and photos of steamships with 3 or 4 enormous funnels to get some idea of what was being achieved in those days, in the search for Power. Or look at those magnificent locomotives, roaring ahead with their squat funnels belching smoke...
  That's where we all came from.  
  The Solar Tower, being a giant funnel, perhaps may be regarded as a "joke of history", a reminder that progress is not linear but helical, almost, but not quite, repeating itself. (As an example of Helical Progress, consider the modern car, with its Common Rail fuel injection system, seeming sometimes, from the hype, to be the best thing since sliced bread).
  Sixty-odd years ago, when I first went to sea, in an ancient diesel engined ship, the engines consisted of two mighty Werkspoor 14 cylinder engines, stretching away down the engine room, each with a common rail fuel pump, each with a spare pump "linked out" in case of emergency. We were ever so pleased when the common rail gave way to solid injection, which the car industry is now abandoning.
  The point is, the Solar Tower funnel is an intrinsically sound engineering project, with hundreds of thousands of working precursors. So we can take it as read that it will work.
  OK they are building the first plant miles from anywhere in Oz, the second perhaps in Arizona, Nevada or wherever, but when the concept becomes "comfortable", the sky is the limit. What is to stop a new town being build beneath a Solar Tower umbrella, which would supply the communitys energy needs? Danger? It would be like building a town in a greenhouse.              

  Peter Melia

  On Solar Tower posted 4 years, 6 months ago 4 Responses