Road-tripping to the Crescent Dunes Solar Project

After seeing it from the air on many flights to and from L.A., I wanted to check out the Crescent Dunes Solar Concentrator for myself. So, what better way than to take a motorbike road trip into the Nevada desert for a closer look.

The plant works by collecting energy from the sun to melt salt, the heat from which boils water via a heat exchanger. It’s the steam from the boiling water that spins a turbine and generates electricity. The amount of molten salt that is created is enough to continue boiling water to generate power for 10 hours, long enough to smooth out production when the sun is not shining. The plant can generate 110 megawatts of electricity, enough to power around 75,000 homes. And it does it without burning fossil fuels or releasing greenhouse gases. 

To generate the heat required to do all this, more than 10,000 mirrors are focused onto a tower some 200 meters (656 feet) high, where pipes carry the salt to be heated. The salt exits to a reservoir where it is held around 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit (566 degrees Celsius). 

But like all energy systems, there are no free lunches here. The amount of land required to build a facility like this is not trivial, and neither are the consequences for local ecosystems. And you need a good supply of direct sunlight, hence locating these plants in the desert Southwest. And, thus far, these systems aren’t cheap. But these systems don’t contribute to climate change, and they don’t release air pollutants that can negatively affect human health. So, I’d venture these systems probably come out ahead in terms of economic efficiency.  

Are solar farms like this the future of energy production? Watch the video and let me know what you think: