page_title: Solar updraft tower
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Solar updraft tower / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Drawing of a smoke-jack. SMOKE-JACK is an engine used for the same purpose as the common jack; and is so called from its being moved by means of the smoke, or rarefied air, ascending the chimney, and striking against the sails of the horizontal wheel AB (plate XII. fig. 1.), which being inclined to the horizon, is moved about the axis of the wheel, together with the pinion C, which carries the wheels D and E; and E carries the chain F, which turns the spit. The wheel AB should be placed in the narrow part of the chimney, where the motion of the smoke is swiftest, and where also the greatest part of it must strike upon the sails. --The force of this machine depends upon the draught of the chimney, and the strength of the fire. Smoke-jacks are sometimes moved by means of spiral flyers coiling about a vertical axle; and at other times by a vertical wheel with sails like the float-boards of a mill: but the above is the more customary construction. 日本語: スモーク・ジャックの手書き図版。
context_page_description: The solar updraft tower is a design concept for a renewable-energy power plant for generating electricity from low temperature solar heat. Sunshine heats the air beneath a very wide greenhouse-like roofed collector structure surrounding the central base of a very tall chimney tower. The resulting convection causes a hot air updraft in the tower by the chimney effect. This airflow drives wind turbines, placed in the chimney updraft or around the chimney base, to produce electricity.
  As of mid 2018, although several prototype models have been built, no full-scale practical units are in operation. Scaled-up versions of demonstration models are planned to generate significant power. They may also allow development of other applications, such as to agriculture or horticulture, to water extraction or distillation, or to improvement of urban air pollution.
  Commercial investment may have been discouraged by the high initial cost of building a very large novel structure, the large land area required and by the risk of investment. However, there is renewed interest in solar updraft towers, especially in sunny remote areas.
context_section_description: A chimney turbine was envisioned as a smoke jack, and illustrated 500 years ago by Leonardo da Vinci.  An animal spitted above a fire or in an oven could be turned by a vertical axis turbine with four angled vanes in the chimney updraft.
  In 1896, Mr. Alfred Rosling Bennett published the first patent describing a "Convection Mill". Even if in the title of the Patent and in the claims the word "Toy" clearly appears and even if in the overall description made inside the Patent it is evident that the idea was to produce small devices, in page 3 at lines 49-54 Bennett envisions much larger devices for bigger scale applications. A model of this "convection mill", built in 1919 by Albert H. Holmes & Son (London) to demonstrate the phenomenon of convection currents, is on display in the Science Museum, London.
  In 1903, Isidoro Cabanyes, a colonel in the Spanish army, proposed a solar chimney power plant in the magazine La energía eléctrica. Another early description was published in 1931 by German author Hanns Günther. Beginning in 1975, Robert E. Lucier applied for patents on a solar chimney electric power generator; between 1978 and 1981 patents (since expired) were granted in Australia, Canada, Israel, and the US.
  In 1926 Prof Engineer Bernard Dubos proposed to the French Academy of Sciences the construction of a Solar Aero-Electric Power Plant in North Africa with its solar chimney on the slope of a large mountain. A mountainside updraft tower can also function as a vertical greenhouse.
  In 1982, a small-scale experimental model of a solar draft tower was built in Manzanares, Ciudad Real, 150 km south of Madrid, Spain at 39°02′34.45″N 3°15′12.21″W. The power plant operated for approximately eight years. The tower's guy-wires were not protected against corrosion and failed due to rust and storm winds. The tower blew over and was decommissioned in 1989.
  Inexpensive materials were used in order to evaluate their performance. The solar tower was built of iron plating only 1.25 millimetres (0.049 in) thick under the direction of a German engineer, Jörg Schlaich. The project was funded by the German government.
  The chimney had a height of 195 metres (640 ft) and a diameter of 10 metres (33 ft) with a collection area (greenhouse) of 46 hectares (110 acres) and a diameter of 244 metres (801 ft), obtaining a maximum power output of about 50 kW. Various materials were used for testing, such as single or double glazing or plastic (which turned out not to be durable enough). One section was used as an actual greenhouse. During its operation, 180 sensors measured inside and outside temperature, humidity and wind speed data was collected on a second-by-second basis. This experimental setup did not sell energy.
  In December 2010, a tower in Jinshawan in Inner Mongolia, China started operation, producing 200 kilowatts. The 1.38 billion RMB (USD 208 million) project was started in May 2009. It was intended to cover 277 hectares (680 acres) and produce 27.5 MW by 2013, but had to be scaled back. The solar chimney plant was expected to improve the climate by covering loose sand, restraining sandstorms. Critics have said that the 50m tall tower is too short to work properly and that it was a mistake to use glass in metal frames for the collector, as many of them cracked and shattered in the heat.
  A proposal to construct a solar updraft tower in Fuente el Fresno, Ciudad Real, Spain, entitled Ciudad Real Torre Solar would be the first of its kind in the European Union and would stand 750 metres (2,460 ft) tall,  covering an area of 350 hectares (860 acres).
  It is expected to produce 40 MW. At that height, it would be nearly twice as tall as the Belmont TV Mast, which was once the tallest structure in the European Union, before being shortened by 24 meter.
  In 2001, EnviroMission proposed to build a solar updraft tower power generating plant known as Solar Tower Buronga near Buronga, New South Wales. The company did not complete the project. They have plans for a similar plant in Arizona, and most recently (December 2013) in Texas, but there is no si
caption: Smoke-jack from A Treatise of Mechanics (1826)
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS2 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:12:22 09:46:03", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "5987", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "526", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "719"}