Abengoa Solar has announced that they intend to build the first Solar Thermal installation integrated with a Coal Plant owned by Xcel Energy. The demonstration project is intended to increase power plant efficiency while lowering CO2 emissions. This is the first time that solar energy will be used to increase the efficiency and lower the emissions of a coal power plant in the United States.
The question that I have is should we be going down this road at all? By making the process more efficient and therefore able to produce cheaper electricity are we not undermining our efforts to get off of coal based generation all together? The combination of ultra clean solar thermal energy and coal combustion may reduce the overall CO2 released into the atmosphere but does it not pave the way to utilize even more of our coal reserves? We know that we are going to use all of our petroleum reserves , right to the last drop but if we resign ourselves to also using our coal reserves we will never halt the increase of global CO2. I believe that playing with this technology makes a slippery slope even slicker. Here is what the company has to say:
Abengoa Solar has been selected by Xcel Energy, Colorado’s largest electric utility company, to build a demonstration parabolic trough concentrating solar power (CSP) plant at its Cameo coal plant near Grand Junction, Colorado. The project is the first to integrate an industrial solar installation into a conventional electrical power plant.
Construction is expected to start within a month and the plant is expected to be operational by the end of the year. The project, awarded to Abengoa Solar by Xcel, is the first project under an Innovative Clean Technology program that has been approved for Xcel Energy by the Colorado Public Utilities Commission.
The goal of the project is to prove that the heat produced by a solar facility can increase the efficiency of a conventional power plant while also lowering carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. Successful integration of this technology may enable future large-scale applications of this technology into other power plants.
“We continue to move forward in developing ways to help us reduce our impact on the environment,” said David Wilks, President of Energy Supply for Xcel Energy. “If this demonstration works, we may be able to implement this type of technological advance in other coal-fired power plants to help further reduce carbon dioxide emissions in Colorado and possibly other areas of our service territory.”
This four thermal megawatt solar installation will use state-of-the-art parabolic trough collectors developed by Abengoa Solar.
Ken May, Director of Abengoa Solar IST, emphasized the high potential of large-scale applications of the industrial solar installation technology: “Proper use of the solar thermal energy produced at these facilities can improve plant efficiency while lowering CO2 emissions. The successful integration of solar and coal technologies will encourage more widespread use throughout the utility sector.”
Parabolic Trough Technology for Industrial Solar Installations
Parabolic trough technology can be used for both electricity generation as well as for producing thermal energy for industrial processes. More extensive use of this technology could have a significant positive impact on the environment. Abengoa Solar’s industrial parabolic trough technology installation utilizes collectors that track the sun during the daytime in order to concentrate solar radiation onto a heat-absorbing pipe located at the focal line of the parabola. The heated fluid that circulates through the pipe reaches high temperatures and, by means of a heat exchanger, produces energy that can be used to generate steam, to heat water or air, or to run an absorption machine for an air conditioning system.
Tags: Abengoa, Abengoa Solar, carbon, clean technology, co2 emissions, coal, coal combustion, coal plant, coal power, coal reserves, collector, Colorado, Coloradoâ, concentrating solar power, Convention, CSP, David Wilks, demonstration project, DOE, efficiency, electrical power plant, electricity generation, environment, Generation, Grand Junction, grand junction colorado, Parabolic, petroleum reserves, Power plant, power plant efficiency, solar, solar energy, solar installation, solar power, solar thermal, solar thermal energy, Sun, Technology, thermal energy, united states, Xcel energy, xcel energy colorado
[...] View original post here: Should we Make Solar Energy Dirty? | Solar Thermal Magazine [...]
EldSSD I bookmarked this link. Thank you for good job!
It is the coolest site, keep so!,
I’m always excited to visit this blog in the evenings.Please keep on churning out the content. It’s very entertaining.
The title should be `Should We Make Coal Energy Cleaner?` Any technology which generates more power by using lesser fuel( as compared to conventional thermal technology) is clean by any standards. Hence, integrating solar into coal is a highly welcome move. There seems to be no reason why it should not succeed – technically or economically.
Hi thanks a lot for a perceptive post, I actually found your blog by mistake while looking on Goole for something else closely related, anyhow before i ramble on too much i would just like to state how much I enjoyed your post, I have bookmarked your site and also taken your RSS feed, Once Again thanks for the blog post keep up the good work.
If solar thermal can reduce overall CO2 generation, this would be better than pretending that we can sequester CO2 under ground. Coal will not be replaced overnight for electricity generation. Economic return through efficiency improvements will drive solar thermal installations, thus improving technology and business operations of solar thermal suppliers. If every coal plant worldwide implemented this type of solar thermal installation (because it improves the bottom line) how much CO2 reduction would occur?
Interesting post. I would agree with the sentiments and suggest that it would be preferable to integrate solar thermal with a dispatchable renewable energy source, such as biogas, rather than a highly-polluting, non-renewable source. This might mean installing solar thermal generation at landfills, not an altogether bad idea, either.
I agree with the comment that your article should have been titled “Should We Make Dirty Power Cleaner?”. At least, this is just as accurate a description as was your title. The obvious response to your choice is “NO!”, whereas the obvious response to the alternative, euqlly accurate title is “YES!”. You choose as you did because you did not wish to ask a question, rather you wanted to reinforce your initial beliefs. This is a common problem with many polls, they are designed not to test, but to demonstrate support for an existing agenda.
Coal is a resource, as is solar energy and even the environment we prefer to live in. We need to operate at some balance that optimizes our lives. CO2 is not a poison, in fact it is required for photosynthesis and the present atmospheric levels of about 380 parts per million are well under the optimum for plant growth (greenhouses generate CO2 to increase the concentration to the 1600 parts per million range, more than 4 times the normal concentration today). The problem we have with CO2 is that it acts as a weak greenhouse gas, water vapor is about 5 times more effective and methane about 30 times more effective as greenhouse gases. Adding CO2 to the atmosphere causes an increase in plant life, particularly ocean algae that produce most of our oxygen. We need to reduce and control the amount of CO2 we produce, not eliminate it altogether.
Google blog search is always great for finding new stuff! I was trying to figure out how to install an attic ventilator.. Don’t know why this one came up!
Wow! what an idea ! What a concept ! Beautiful .. Amazing …
[...] mail show, where Jeremy Rogers and David Accampo answer all that we can about Season One and theShould we Make Solar Energy Dirty? | Solar Thermal MagazineAbengoa Solar has announced that they intend to build the first Solar Thermal installation [...]
Super-Duper site! I am loving it!! Will come back again – taking you feeds also, Thanks.
I love it!