Pretty cool. Reminds me a bit of the huge solar tower in Australia.

"five megawatt (MW) power station by June in Pune near Mumbai that will use solar energy to power wind turbines".

Hmm. Since when do wind turbines need to be powered by another source of energy? Aren't they both supposed to produce energy?

Wow, very poor basic grammar on their website and no revenue to date, but their IPO is going to be worth $5b?

Pardon while I reset my BS detector...

Solar Chimney technology is not new or BS. It's probably the next accepted form of alternative energy. There is real money behind several projects now like this one. Wind is not strong enough everywhere and chimneys may compete with non-thermal photovoltaic on economics, efficiencies i.e easy to maintain. I personally think as the price of silicon goes up and there is more demand for clean energy, there will be more research and it will be more common place, more than wind mills or photovoltaic solar. Even if this project fails, I really hope the technology has a place. This hybrid of solar and wind has none of the problems of either. It does not kill birds. It does not pollute like solar cells can. I cannot find a problem. By products of systems like this one is clean water. It's really amazing and beautiful. It may be the perfect clean energy source.

WOV: I concur.

The Louvre already uses (part of) this technology to bake its visitors in the summer. Their glass pyramids do a great job of collecting solar energy. Unfortunately, they are too stupid to use it for anything.

This is very very cool. I wonder if it could be constructed in such a way that you could live/work in it?

Reminds of the "Eastgate" complex in Harare - which is designed like a termite mound to keep cool without Air Conditioning: LINK HERE

Nick, the space in, around Solar Chimneys, according to a wiki entry, has dual uses for things like farming and biomass which solar and wind does today but not to any real direct benefit to both like the Solar Chimney.

We should have this or similar technology on the Big Island in Hawaii where there are many square miles of uninhabited lava rock fields, especially in the Kona and Ka'u areas. We have plenty of sunlight here. The hotels and residents pay a premium for thermal electricity produced with sour (high sulfur) oil imported from Indonesia.

adrianakau@aol.com

thks fellows for the comments, any mail can be forwarded to me at scmoksg@yahoo.com

Please explain this to me. What I see is a greenhouse effect funneled through a small hole at the top. Condensation collected and filtered for water.

1. Could the same thing work with a hollow wall to collect the heat and leave the center as living space? Parts could be clear , parts semiclear and parts opaque. Creating windows. This could possibly be variable with sliding covers.

2. What % of the heat would be collected with only the two sunniest sides being transparent? Say in St. Louis for example.

3. What would be the best way to modulate the temperature for a home or office space?

4. What would be the best way to store the heat for later use, still using some for power production?

Advantages of this type of construction would be reasonable cost for advanced architecture. No roof needed. Metal and glass with a cement base. Possibly with a basement. No windows needed. Very low, or no heating cost.

What do you think?

Ron Wagner

Why solar pyramids and not solar domes

Solar domes have less surface area than pyramids?
http://sun-konarka.blogspot.com/ Weblink

It is a best way to use solar energy. Like to get infprmation on how it is working now and how efficient it is.