What's the deal with Solar Updraft Towers? Why aren't they being made?

Zoning comes to mind, as does cost-effectiveness and investor interest.

That’s a beautiful idea.

Since a “successful research prototype operated in Spain in the 1980s”, I guess they are just not cost-effective.

Yet.

Heres a clip of what it might look like. @Nullo by zoning you mean residential/commercial/industrial? These would probably only make sense in really sparsely populated areas because they require so much land. I would think there would be lots of available sites in the American southwest for example.

@gorillapaws Great stuff! I want one!

@gorillapaws Put them up in the Southwest and you would have to face the ironic wrath of the environmental people. :D

@Nullo I’d like to say that’s not true, but after watching the Kennedy family fight Cape Wind off Nantucket I must sadly conclude that some environmentalists are pure as much NIMBYs as anyone else.

@gorillapaws I would guess initial investment and start-up costs are issues delaying adoption. But it would seem ideal for desert reclamation in third-world areas where barren lands and hunger abound. With the heat collector being a greenhouse and the power generated operating deep wells, it could bring life and prosperity to otherwise extremely hostile lands.

@Nullo I realize you were being cute, but would one of these things have some negative environmental drawbacks?

Building footprint, for starters.

@Nullo but if it’s in the desert does that really impact anything other than the local hardpan?

@gorillapaws That depends on what kind of desert you’re talking about. A lot of the deserts of the Southwest are pretty verdant. As deserts go. Dropping something the size of a city onto the scrub and cacti and lizards and creepy-crawlies is going to upset some people.
Places like the Sahara and Gobi deserts, on the other hand, aren’t good for much else.

Land is expensive anywhere and if it’s to double as a green house the desert isn’t an option because irrigation would be pretty expensive. It also doesn’t actually seem to generate all that much power.

Why aren’t there more nuclear power plants?

@Zyx I think moisture in the air condenses on the surface of the film at night, but I could be wrong. Also, only the permitter seems to be able to support agriculture because it becomes too hot/windy as you get closer to the tower.

I do agree with more nuclear plants, but I believe managing nuclear waste is still an unresolved issue. What’s neat about the solar updraft is that it’s a relatively simple structure with few moving parts; it’s the scale that makes it expensive.

If we would have taken the money Obama put into Solyndra and put it toward a tower we would be a lot better off now.

@Rock2 20/20 hindsight is always spot on. If we’d invested nothing in future technology over the course of US history, where do you think we would be today? Not every bet is going to pay off; but if you do nothing, nothing is the reward you reap.

@ETpro
I’ve studied history and I have found that the best ideas don’t come from government investments. In fact, government investment usually result in the worst ideas. Most good investments come from private investors (Steve Jobs, Bill Gates) who were doing things that weren’t planned.

Give people the freedom to do what they want. Don’t put a lot of restrictions on them.

@Rock2 Your study has been pretty poorly conducted. Perhaps you already knew what you wished to find, and looked only for confirmation of that opinion. The Internet grew out of a DARPA project. The World Wide Web came from CERN, not funded solely by the US government, but definitely government funded. Cell phones, GPS and any number of other innovations grew from NASA research.

Government funded research into green energy doesn’t put restrictions on entrepreneurs. Quite the opposite, the technology that has come from research agencies like DARPA, NASA, NOAA, The National Institutes of Health, The USDA and a whole host more move straight into the private sector where existing corporations and budding entrepreneurs commercialize them.

@ETpro

Read (or watch) “Connections” by James Burke.

The internet uses nothing more than existing telephone lines.

The internet grew to significance because of a desire for porn.

The government needs to do the things that are too big to be done by individuals such as National Defense. You didn’t mention the Defense Data Network. GPS is defense.

A lot of government departments could be done without. Departments like the Energy Department, the Education Department and the EPA.

Burt Routan put a vehicle in space on what NASA spends on coffee in a year.

@Rock2 This is all way off topic, but I’m really curious which private organization you think should run the EPA’s duties? Should we turn the regulation and enforcement of environmental protection over to a coalition of Greenpeace and the Sierra Club?

@Rock2 Your sources and uyouir level oc comfirmation bias make denate useless. Plonk.

@gorillapaws
There should not be an EPA.

@ETpro
Is english your first language? I don’t believe you know what confirmation bias is.

@Rock2 I am well aware of what confirmation bias is. The gibberish above was posted late at night and after a couple of stiff shots of vodka. Sorry for all the typos. Can you actually deal with issues, or are ad hominem attacks and playing the grammar Nazi your only method of proving your point?

@ETpro
Are you sober now?
Your faith in government bureaucrats decision making is disturbing to me.
For years I have watch them make horrible decisions.
Read the book “Connections” and see how things were really invented.

@Rock2 I realize you don’t think there should be an EPA, are you saying there shouldn’t be any enforcement of environmental protections at all? Nothing to prevent a chemical company from polluting your well-water? Or releasing dangerous chemicals into the atmosphere?

@Rock2 I can remember when the Cuyahoga River caught on fire last. It had happened 13 times since the late 1800s. The river was so polluted that even algae that eat pollution were dead in it. It was a totally dead zone. What do you spray on a river when it catches fire? Water?

I remember when the national forests were dying from acid rain. You want to go back to that? That is what we got when we left environmental issues entirely up to states which are easily bought off by polluters.

Who needs trees and plants? Right? Who needs clean air to breathe, or water to drink? Corporate profits are all that matter, right. Even if maximizing those profits kills all the corporation’s customers. Small price to pay for right-wing efficiency.

@ETpro
I’m going to stop this pissing contest before it gets out of hand.

When was the last time the Cuyahpga caught fire, the 70’s?

The national forests were never dying from acid rain. That was found to be a hoax.

Don’t believe everything you think. Get some perspective.

@Rock2 The Cuyahuga River last caught on fire in the 70s because after that, we passed the Clean Air and Water act, and cleaned it up. There are actually fish living in it today.

Do you remember the massive disinformation campaign that Big Tobacco launched from the 50s forward when their own scientists had told them that their product, used precisely per the manufacturer’s directions, was killing 350,000 American consumers each year. What did they do? They launched a massive disinformation campaign to “scientifically prove” smoking was good for you and nicotine was not addictive. Simultaneously, they targeted children with Joe the Camel advertising designed to recruit a new crop of 350,000 dupes each year to replace the consumers they killed off.

The very same PR firms that ran the disinformation campaign and advertising for Big Tobacco are now working for Big Oil and Big Coal. But the world-wide Fossil Fuel Industry is worth $37 trillion per year. You can buy an enormous stock of phony, junk-science websites and disinformation and even sell-out scientists with that sort of cash. Then you can tell the dupes that All Gore’s 100 million is behind the climate change “hoax”. You can claim the forests weren’t ever dying—it was a “hoax”—even though I saw the dying trees with my own eyes.

Whom do you expect me to believe? Shills for a $37 million a year industry, or my own lying eyes?

@ETpro
Ever heard of anecdotal evidence?

Who will save us from the people who want to save us?

@Rock2 Have YOU ever heard of anecdotal evidence? You might be wise to worry more about who will save you from the likes of Big Tobacco, Big Oil and Big Coal. They may pay you well to support their massive profits, but if their plan is to kill you and most of humanity for those profits, what have you gained?

@ETpro
Your conspiracy theories are not backed up with evidence.