Green Architecture of the Future
Tue, Jun 10, 2008
The Web Urbanist examines seven fantastic green-architecture concepts from around the world.
The most stunning of the bunch is the solar tower. The 377ft tower is surrounded by hundreds of ground level solar reflectors that beam reflected sunlight onto one point of the tower. The tower transforms this concentrated sunlight into steam, which is then fed into turbines:
From a distance, as we rounded a bend and first caught sight of it, I couldn’t believe the strange structure ahead of me was actually real.
A concrete tower - 40 stories high - stood bathed in intense white light, a totally bizarre image in the depths of the Andalusian countryside.
The tower looked like it was being hosed with giant sprays of water or was somehow being squirted with jets of pale gas. I had trouble working it out.
In fact, as we found out when we got closer, the rays of sunlight reflected by a field of 600 huge mirrors are so intense they illuminate the water vapour and dust hanging in the air.
Tags: Green Tech
January 17th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Amazing! I have seen these on TV only. They seem quite successful in that sunny Spanish climate. Although I think that as photovoltaic cells get cheaper, that method of harvesting sunlight may prove more cost-effective. An advantage of the solar tower concept is you can to some extent store the energy.
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February 11th, 2009 at 7:29 am
That’s pretty cool stuff.
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