The world's tallest structure may soon be looming over the Australian outback. A "green energy" company called EnviroMission plans to erect a 1000-meter tower--twice the height of Toronto's CN Tower--to generate solar power in the Buronga district of New South Wales.
The tower will be surrounded by a 5-kilometer-diameter greenhouse. As hot air flows up the sloped greenhouse roof, it will power 32 giant turbines capable of producing enough energy to serve 200,000 homes. EnviroMission calculates that the equivalent amount of power generated by a coal-fired station would produce 830,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year.
The company already has government backing for the $467 million project, on which construction should begin later this year. If all goes well, four more towers will be up by 2010, says CEO Roger Davey.
"The idea is conceptually simple ... almost a microcosm of how the Earth makes wind from solar energy in nature," says engineer James F. Manwell of the University of Massachusetts Renewable Energy Research Laboratory in Amherst. But he says the reliability and cost-effectiveness of the system remain to be seen.
CREDIT: ENVIROMISSION LTD.
