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IN THE MIDDLE of southern Israel’s desert, engineers are hard at work building the world’s tallest solar tower, reflecting the country’s high hopes for renewable energy.
Once completed in late 2017, the Ashalim Tower will rise to 240 metres, taller than Paris’s Montparnasse Tower and London’s Gherkin (and four times taller than Dublin’s Liberty Hall), according to the Israeli government and the consortium building it.
Covered in stainless steel, the square tower in the rocky Negev desert with a peak resembling a giant lighthouse will be visible from dozens of kilometres away.
A field of mirrors covering 300 hectares – the size of more than 400 football pitches – will stretch out from its base, directing sunlight toward the tower’s peak to an area called the boiler, which looks like a giant lightbulb.
The boiler, whose temperature will rise to 600 degrees Celsius, generates steam that is channelled towards the foot of the tower, where electricity is produced.
The construction, costing an estimated €500 million, is being financed by US firm General Electric, with France’s Alstom and Israeli private investment fund Noy also involved.
Israel’s government launched a tender for the project in 2013, committing to purchase electricity from it over 25 years as part of a shift towards renewable energy and energy independence.
Clean at a cost
The country mainly generates electricity using plants fired by coal, natural gas and fuel oil. Its domestic supply of natural gas has grown with the discovery of fields in the Mediterranean.
Solar requires a major investment, though costs are gradually coming down.
Energy from a solar tower is “two to three times more expensive to produce than classic electricity plants using carbon or fuel”, said Eran Gartner, who heads the Megalim consortium managing the project.
The tower should provide 121 megawatts, or two percent of Israel’s electricity needs, enough for a city of 110,000 households.
The country of eight million people is seeking to make renewable energy account for 10 percent of its total consumption by 2020.
Solar power offers a clean alternative to fuel- and carbon-fired electricity plants, which contribute to global warming with their heat-trapping CO2 emissions.
“The government agreed to move ahead with this technology — even though we do not hide the fact that it is more expensive than traditional electricity production — precisely to achieve lower costs over time,” Gartner said at the site.
The second solar tower will be slightly less expensive, the third much less expensive, et cetera.
He predicted a futuristic landscape of towers overlooking the desert.
Israel could in theory meet all its electricity needs through solar energy by using only four percent of the Negev desert, said Eitan Parnass, head of the Green Energy Association of Israel.
Field of mirrors
Israel’s offshore gas finds are a major boost toward energy independence, but Parnass said it must continue to diversify to avoid reliance on a single source in the turbulent Middle East.
“We are in a situation where we cannot simply look at the economic aspect,” he said.
Israel has no choice but to diversify its energy independence, first for reasons of security.
However, critics have panned the project as too expensive and complex compared to other solutions.
Yael Cohen, an Israeli lawmaker with the opposition Zionist Union alliance and co-chair of the Green Movement political party, said the project has “requirements so demanding and costs so high” that it cannot be replicated.
Solar power has for years formed a part of life in Israel, where rooftop panels are often used to heat the water tanks of homes.
A solar tower and its field of mirrors, a technology known as concentrated solar thermal, is only profitable as part of a large-scale project, unlike a photovoltaic field, where each panel acts as a small generator.
The Ashalim tower will be equipped with 55,000 projecting mirrors, amounting to a total reflective surface of a million square metres.
Like sunflowers, the mirrors will turn toward the path of the sun.
Engineers have developed reservoirs for the task of storing heat when the sun is not out.
“It’s the big plus of solar tower technology… centralisation and stockage of energy at nighttime opens the path to massive use of solar electricity in Israel,” said Parnass.
Solar towers have already been built in locations such as Morocco, South Africa and California, where the world’s tallest at present – standing at 137 metres – is located in Ivanpah in the Mojave desert.
“We multiplied the size of the mirrors by three compared to the previous generation,” Gartner said.
Everything is connected by WiFi instead of by cables. The tower and its boiler are also designed to reduce costs. Everything is done to pursue profitability.
Time for a boycott of Israeli goods, their system is the same as flourished for years in South Africa !!!
Are they exporting the energy generated? No, then your comment has no relevance to the article.
Every single article concerning Israel and the apartheid they run should be calling for a boycott of their goods or services, poor Palestinians are being wiped off the map and the world looks on and does nothing
It didn’t take long for a HAMAS lover to arrive.
But they make excellent quality products in Israel…
History had shown us that if Israel is in the headline you can expect at least a 3 of them… Other buzz words like Jew, Middle East and Palestine tend to attract them also
Paul, you know that whatever your using to comment here probably has Israeli technology in it?
You’re*
Feel free to boycott Israeli products anytime you like. Start by throwing out your laptop/desktop and mobile phone.. You wouldn’t want to be using nasty Zi*nist developed things like pentium/celeron processors or 4g technology anyway. While your at it you’d better cancel your Facebook account.. you’d pretty much cancel all social media accounts as huge amounts of the plugins they use were developed in Israel… While you’re reading this site there’s guaranteed to be Israeli designed software of some sort running on either your device or on the Journals servers… So please feel free to boycott Israeli goods anytime you like…
@Paul Doyle……… The following is the result of your Jew-hating boycott campaign which as evidenced by Palestinians is not concern for Palestinians but pure Jew-hatred.
—”Hundreds of Palestinian workers have lost their jobs following a boycott campaign against SodaStream, an Israeli company that manufactures home kitchen fizzy drink machines once promoted by Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson. —”
—”The Post, quoting the company, reported that the Palestinian employees each supported an average of 10 other people with their income.
“All the people who wanted to close [the factory] are mistaken. … They didn’t take into consideration the families,” Ali Jafar, a Palestinian shift manager, told The Guardian in September. —”
https://www.sott.net/article/313538-SodaStream-bows-to-BDS-pressure-closes-West-Bank-factory
@paul…boycott? I actually look for and actively purchase products from Israel!
1948 1.2 million Arabs in the region 2016 5.4 million, some wipeout fool
@Bill Madden……..Does anyone know how to buy go about buying shares in Israeli companies?
?
Here’s the NASDAQ list anyway… With the amount of tech/bio tech companies, the Israelis boycotting sales to us would do a hell of a lot more damage than us boycotting them… https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Israeli_companies_quoted_on_the_Nasdaq .
I always find it funny how some claim to be anti-Israeil but not anti-jewish… I usually respond saying I’m not anti Israel,i I am however a Jew heater, the reactions are usually quite funny
@PaddyRyan…Thanks for that Paddy!
The young lads with the slings are licking their lips.
Holla!!! , I don’t know how to explain this; it’s just like a dream. few weeks ago I saw a post of Bruce on how Dr Osun helped him win lottery , I never had any money in my account, I had to contact Dr Osun for Mega Million Lottery assistance , he gave me all I used in winning $1,000,000 Dollars , I am rich now , please to those of you out there who has financial issues , you don’t deserve that , just email Dr Osun for lottery assistance , I assue you ,that you will testify just like me , Faithfullovespell @yahoo.com or call him on +2347035519489.his Web site: http://faithfullovespell5.wix.com/lottery and http://faithfullovespell.wix.com/dr-osun
It’s in Israel, there are no “Palestinians” in Israel and no Israelis in “Palestine”. Israel has 20% Arab Muslim population and they proudly call themselves “Israelis”, they don’t carry slings, they have guns to protect themselves against Hamas and Fatah terrorists.
Go Israel !
Wow only 10 times more expensive than Eircode :)
Well, it might need an Eircode to help find it, being so unobtrusive and all!
It’s not Israel, it’s Palestine!!
The Negev Desert is pretty much exclusively within Israeli territory, not Palestinian.
It’s not Palestine it’s Britain!!!
Would not like to be the insurance company covering this . Building anything on sand is not supposed to be the best idea. It’s a big risk to take, a window cleaners nightmare, machinery and sand working in harmony especially in a desert will be some achievement. Wish them well in this worthwhile project and hope the give back Palestine sometime soon and lift there blockade on Gaza that is causing so much hardship to fellow humans just trying to survive.
If they’re just trying to survive then they really shouldn’t have time to be indiscriminately lobbing into Israel now should they ?
From the article…”Covered in stainless steel, the square tower in the rocky Negev desert with a peak resembling a giant lighthouse will be visible from dozens of kilometres away.”
Not all deserts are full of sand.
All these type of solar farms are in sandy deserts so sand prevention measures would be built in and Israel are more used to it than say Spain where another one of these are. Unlike solar PV plants, cleaning them is easier, costs less in panels and the heated liquid can some retain energy after the sun sets using molten salt or air pressure/flywheel/battery etc
Thought god didnt like people building towers in that part of the world
Israeli the best place for it? jokes
Boycott the apartheid state which is in breach of resolution 242 and occupying territories which they have robbed from others. There is no good in Israel and they should not be promoted in any shape or format.
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