Monday, August 17, 2009

44 megawatts of power are generated daily from this solar generating facility, taking up, I'm guessing, 50 acres -- salt water is heated in pipes that run across the mirrors pictured below, which go to boilers which drive turbines. I wasn't allowed in, but did have a conversation with an engineer on the phone outside the gate. He says that comes out to about 120,000 homes' daily power needs. This is also technology from the early 80's.... how about that! There are new approaches featuring mirrors that focus light and heat at towers and more pipes which then conduct the heat to 600 degrees.... much more efficient.
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More Mojave Pictures

Great-tailed Grackle. Saw a number of these with their mouths open... Do they pant to keep cool? Or is it Cawing? Here are a few pictures taken between Barstow and Needles, CA:
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Click on these photos and they should enlarge in high resolution, and you will have the best chance to appreciate the scale of things, which is hard to capture with a camera. The train, which now looks tiny, would vanish long before approaching the mountains in the background.... check out the bowl effect -- the way the earth tilts so gradually, approaching the mountains, also in the picture below.
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Area 66 house in Yucca, Arizona:

1 comment:

Honor Woodard said...

Nice, Brien - I like yours, too. I remember the trains from when I drove out west. They are so different in vast spaces than they are 'round here.