Solar pyramid 2A and 2B
Perhaps we need to look into using a stirling engine (instead of a steam engine) for the next version of the solar pyramid. These are more efficient and also do not require water, another high-level issue with environmentalist organisations (some even protest against certain CSP-projects because of it). If only 1 large engine is made (rather than several small ones), perhaps we can make a DIY-version that is still high-performance (smallscale-DIY often leaves imperfections, causing the entire engine to perform even allot worse than steam engines, see planetgreen.discovery.com/.../planet-mechanics/episode-solar-paella.html )
The design we could use is the one also used by Suncatchers --> http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Stirling_Energy_Systems#Stirling_Engine http://www.stirlingenergy.com/how-it-works.htm Simply scaling it up will do, however we'll need to look into making it simpler too (ie not sure about the hydrogen, ...)
another thing which leaves room for improvement (a bit costly otherwise) are the heliostats, appearantly besides metal, glass can also be used (ref: ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/09/solar/johnson-text ): perhaps this can be made locally ?
KVDP 08:55, 7 June 2010 (UTC)