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Akhasha · 01-11-2003, 06:03 PM

Australia did sign the Kyoto agreement, but the government was shamefully a leader of the dissent that succeeded in weakening the agreement.
While the tower does create a 'dead zone' underneath it, there was not much there in the first place - this is desert we are talking about and its one thing Australia has a lot of.
It would not be more cost effective to use the area for photoelectric cells, which are expensive and polluting to make, capture 20% of the energy (if you're lucky) and degrade significantly in a decade. The glass or UV hardened transparent plastic that acts as the primary collectors of heat will degrade much more slowly than that.
The beauty of the design is its simplicity. It combines greenhouse and chimney effects with the atmospheric temperature gradient, and the only moving parts are the turbines (also probably shutters to divert the airflow when the turbines need maintenance).
Sure the atmospheric impact in that region will be a topic of research, but I bet its a lot friendlier than mining for coal, oil or uranium, transporting the fuel to a generator and then reacting the stuff to make steam.
Even a 50m black tower with a greenhouse at the bottom might produce significant power for a farm house.

01-11-2003, 06:03 PM	#18
Akhasha Resident-in-Training Join Date: Sep 2002 Posts: 7	To the tower! Australia did sign the Kyoto agreement, but the government was shamefully a leader of the dissent that succeeded in weakening the agreement. While the tower does create a 'dead zone' underneath it, there was not much there in the first place - this is desert we are talking about and its one thing Australia has a lot of. It would not be more cost effective to use the area for photoelectric cells, which are expensive and polluting to make, capture 20% of the energy (if you're lucky) and degrade significantly in a decade. The glass or UV hardened transparent plastic that acts as the primary collectors of heat will degrade much more slowly than that. The beauty of the design is its simplicity. It combines greenhouse and chimney effects with the atmospheric temperature gradient, and the only moving parts are the turbines (also probably shutters to divert the airflow when the turbines need maintenance). Sure the atmospheric impact in that region will be a topic of research, but I bet its a lot friendlier than mining for coal, oil or uranium, transporting the fuel to a generator and then reacting the stuff to make steam. Even a 50m black tower with a greenhouse at the bottom might produce significant power for a farm house.