The World's First Solar Plant to Generate Electricity Even at Night [Video]

By Andrew Tarantola Oct 11, 2011 11:30 AM 22,738 93

The most obvious criticism of solar energy is that it doesn't work very well when the sun is down. The new Gemasolar heliostatic plant doesn't have that problem, on account of a vat of molten salt that keeps it running through 15 hours of dark.

More than 2,600 concentrically-arranged mirrors at the Gemasolar installation just outside of Seville, Spain concentrate solar energy towards a centrally located molten nitrate salt tank. As the rays converge, they super-heat the salt to over 900 degrees Celsius, causing water around the tank to boil and drive steam turbines. In addition, any superfluous heat generated during the day is stored within the liquefied salt. It acts like a giant thermal battery for driving the turbines at night and during overcast days—up to 15 hours at a time with no sunlight. Seville, Spain, however, is one of the sunniest areas in Europe, so that doesn't happen very often.

The $410 million (230,000,000 Euro) Gemasolar plant just opened and has a potential output of 20 megawatts, though it is currently operating below that capacity (officials expect it could reach 70 percent capacity by 2012). It's the largest solar power station of its type in Europe, and it has an annual production total or roughly 110 GWh/year—enough to power 25,000 homes and reduce atmospheric CO2 emissions by more than 30,000 tons a year.

The combination of thermal energy storage and sunny weather guarantees that the Gemasolar plant can operate for at least 6,500 hours a year, up to three times longer than other renewable sources.

[Euronews - Geekosystem - Geeksailor - The Energy Collective]

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Virginia Nuclear Power Plant Didn't Take the Earthquake Too Well [Earthquake]

Things could have been more dramatic during the August 23 East Coast earthquake. Not Fukushima level bad, but bad. 25 of 27 spent uranium casks were shaken up to 4 inches off their place at North Anna nuclear power plant.

Apparently, the quake "potentially exceeded" the plant's design, which is located in Louisa County, Virginia. The fact is that they don't really know yet. Why? According to a spokesman: "It's complicated."

A spokesman for Dominion Virginia Power—the company that runs the plant—said that they didn't report it to the public because "it was not considered damage", even while the casks were pushed off their position by 1 to 4 inches. They don't really know if the quake exceeded the plant design yet, even while the plant is supposed to withstand 5.9 to 6.2 earthquakes. I con't understand how a nuclear power station is designed to easily withstand a 5.9 to 6.2 earthquake, but suffers considerable damage with a 5.8 alone.

The plant did report an alert status right after the earthquake.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission believes that there are no issues at this point, even while North Anna's two nuclear reactors—built in 1971—are still shut down after the earthquake hit. According to the NRC, "it does not appear to be a safety issue at this point."

According an August 2010 story by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the risk of an intense earthquake causing core damage to the one reactors is 1 in 22,727 yearly. Doesn't seem too remote to me. [Wikipedia via USA Today and Washington Post]

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