News Flash: Brand New Technology Sometimes Has Operational Flaws
A reader sent me this article about a fire of unknown cause, blazing in the tower of the large solar thermal facility in Nevada (Ivanpah). Whenever I see stuff like this, i.e., pointing out how nascent technology doesn’t work perfectly all the time, I’m reminded of all the people in history who look so foolish today, who bet against the feasibililty of the telephone, the automobile, the computer, etc.
It is likely that they will find ways to prevent the problem from recurring. Obviously if the mirror tracking system fails, the sun’s heat can be directed improperly causing serious problems which is exactly what happened. Perhaps if the power tower were covered with mirrors except for the area where the sun’s heat is supposed to be delivered then misaligned mirrors would not cause serious problems. There could also be an emergency system to force all the mirrors to be quickly adjusted to a position where they would not reflect the sun. Or, an emergency system could be devised which would spray a sticky black fluid onto the several acres of mirrors which could be laboriously washed off after the problem is corrected.
Scrapping solar power because of an accident or two would be just as foolish as scrapping nuclear power because of two accidents. However, there are other problems which make the practicality of the system questionable.