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solar tower city

 build a solar tower over as city.
  (+1)
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No more bad weather. Forget the umbrella. Harvest all the rainwater, and get lots of solar energy. Build a solar tower over a sun belt city. In an arid city, the water management would be very valuable, and the constant gentle breeze would be nice. Much of the infrastructure could have multiple uses. Any steam from power plants and other waste heat from the city world contribute to the electricity production, and the tower would act as a large chimney to pull dust and pollution away from the city.
—kramer, Mar 10 2014

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       [marked-as- stating-the-obvious]   

       There has been plenty of discussion on the use of the microclimate under solar updraught installations for crops, human habitation, etc, and suggestions on using waste heat from cities to drive or augment them.   

       (It's still a pretty cool idea; but there's nothing new here.)
—spidermother, Mar 11 2014
   

       Such a town would have few trees. I wouldn't want to be without trees but that's just me. Any truly arid town will have fewer trees.   

       A true solar tower is centralized power and not that efficient. Such a town would be dedicated to centralized power in some political sense as well. Makes me queasy.   

       I would prefer all new construction mandated to be very well insulated and with a well integrated solar heating and cooling. more bang for your buck.   

       Do you just turn the electric off when the sun doesn't shine brightly?   

       Chimney Sweeps are lucky but, you don't want dust and pollution near your solar receiver cutting it's efficiency.   

       "Billy quit climbing on that solar mirror, that's how you lost your left eye."
—popbottle, Mar 11 2014
   

       Hi [kramer] and welcome to the hb.
—xandram, Mar 11 2014
   

       I don't see the benefit of living in a solar tower greenhouse. In a hot dry climate I wouldn't want to be any hotter. In a wet climate, it probably won't be cost effective to build the solar chimney since it won't produce enough. I've seen discussion of growing crops, but those will use lots of water since the constant warm breeze will evaporate water quickly. The added water is apparently benefical for the solar tower, but since hot dry climates are usually lacking in fresh water, the proposal that makes the most sense to me is to to evaporate salt water in the greenhouse for desalinization purposes. I haven't seen how they propose to condense water at the top of the chimney, but I assume it just condenses on the walls of the tower. In that case a lot of the water vapor would be wasted, but it could contribute to rain somewhere downwind.
—scad mientist, Mar 11 2014
   


 

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