It's still funny that so much boils down to steampunk with a fake mustache.

"I'll try spinning! That's a good trick!"

But t solar boiler can still be useful in some cases. Where heated water in "solar" on the roof is used immediately for shower etc.

I mean it seems the more complex solution in deployment for sure, but its design could still have use in low heat industrial uses (sub 250°C, e.g. food prep, textile, sanitation etc.) where it is used heat -> heat rather than heat -> electricity -> heat. Maybe these replace thermal collectors eventually.

But that is not the point of this meme at all, just my thoughts.

Solar thermal has some distinct advantages when you start talking about really big instillations. Especially when considering power storage, molten salt systems can store heat and allow the generators to keep working even at night. Much cheaper than batteries at very large scales.

Thermal solar systems are generally very efficient when the goal is heating something, not just generating power. So say, you want to run an ammonia plant without burning natural gas, or if you want to melt down metals for recycling. There are so many industrial applications where it’s a better way of doing it than using an electric heating element.

For heating I'd guess it can still be relevant. As a means of producing electricity though? Yeah

What are the tanks made of? "Molten salt" sounds like it would fuck up most materials

now hear me out. what if we just boiled water in it. why do we have to get all fucky with it.

Mandatory clothing in our utopian solarpunk society of course

The third guy was busy that day.

Human sacrifices to the Turbine Gods.

Stock assets to show scale, probably.

gotta dress up to visit the machine god

don't wanna insult the machine god with my shabby shoes. wear my fancy shoes.

Someone needs to take credit for the work of engineers and manual laborers.

men in black

It would be a less efficient boiler (because the 'mirrors' would be much less reflective), and much more expensive (because solar panels -- especially custom-made curved ones -- are much more expensive than mirrors).

Overall, I suppose maybe you could come out ahead if you used very efficient solar panels for it, and that would let you generate slightly more watts per surface area used...

But we really don't need to optimize for surface area in 99% of cases. Almost everywhere solar power is used, space to install panels is abundant, and it would be much cheaper and more effective to just put one or the other of these solar collection methods over a slightly wider area if you want increased production. (And even then, most of the cases where production-per-surface-area is very important are on solar-powered vehicles, and these parabolic sun-tracking mirrors are impractical for use on a moving vehicle.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/...

You'd just have 2 inefficient power generators

How about running water through the back side of the panels to keep them cool, transfer the heat into a heat battery (sand) then us that to assist your hot water heater.

Still safe so far

Hydro is the OG boiled water.

Sun heats water. Water evaporates. Go up high. Falls down. Turn turbine.

Wind power is a side effect of the same process happening on a rotating globe.

there's a silencer on its gun, so we probably won't hear much.

carcinization but for steam engines instead of crabs

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nevada_Solar_One

No, neither will it be cheaper.

People stopped building those some years ago.

(But those incredibly expensive concentrators with a single tower are more efficient. Nobody is building those anymore either.)

Another thread I read said that photovoltaics have an efficiency of around 45%, while turbines are somewhere in the 40% range. Source: I dunno.

I know this is a meme community but I was curious about this. It seems some birds do get burned, but not blasted. It varies a lot depending on the installation and it can also be mitigated. Also, the amount of birds dying from this is significantly lower than just the amount of birds hitting windows. For the benefit of other curious people, I'll try to condense the relevant information from wikipedia and the sources.

In more general terms, a 2016 preliminary study assessed that the annual bird mortality per MW of installed power was similar between U.S. concentrated solar power plants and wind power plants, and higher for fossil fuel power plants.

How it was calculated for fossil fuel

Sovacool estimated avian mortality from fossil fuel power plants across the United States as a result of collision with infrastructure, electrocutions, pollution and contamination, and climate change. In addition, Sovacool estimated climate change-induced avian mortality (in terms of habitat loss and changes in migration) predicted to be the result of fossil fuel power plant operations.

A preliminary assessment of avian mortality at utility-scale solar energy facilities in the United States: https://www.sciencedirect.com/...

Review of Avian Mortality Studies at Concentrating Solar Power Plants: https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1364837

Yes, super critical CO2 turbines can work in such a system. As can sterling engines. Or thermoelectric solid state couples.

Any system that uses a temperature differential to generate power can be used. It’s just a matter of what you care about in a given situation. Upfront cost, mechanical reliability, noise/vibration, and availability of needed components play in to what makes the most sense.