Not good but is it accurate? He talks about these proposed projects taking up too much land and having negative environmental impacts. I believe the proposed San Luis site is basically in an arid desert area.
He writes about the massive water usage, but I recall reading that 90% of the water used will be retained and reused.
The author also states that 50% of the power produced would be needed to pump the water to the top of the structure, which is much higher than the 5 - 10% stated by the company.
It would be nice to have some answers to these discrepancies.
Is this his overwhelming evidence at the bottom of the page:
"So there are some issues which make it unlikely that this technology will be competitive. What do I think is the best reason for these not generating electricity in any competitive way?
No one has bothered to build any except for prototypes …
which have been abandoned.
Smart people reinvent variations of these things fairly often. The solar updraft tower was first proposed in 1903. The first patent on the downdraft tower dates from 1975. People get enthused about them, get people to invest, build prototypes which don’t work as hoped. The prototypes get abandoned and hopefully get torn down. There are a few around, and they pop up in speculative fiction occasionally, but they just aren’t economically viable in reality. "
The company has stated that a prototype wouldn't be of any use because it won't work on a smaller scale, the sheer height of the tower is why it will work.
Basically he is saying we are being scammed, which is hard to imagine with teaming agreements in place with Whiting Turner and Commonwealth Dynamics, both of whom are giants in their respective industries.
Would love to hear what Ron has to say about these concerns, maybe in your next email to him?
Anyways, my last post of the day, hope everyone is enjoying their weekend!
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