Hey, here's a brilliant idea -- how about building one of these things upside down (doesn't even need to be that tall), and use it to collect rain water in some rainy area like British Columbia, in order to drive turbines....
....come to think of it, they call this sort of thing hydro power, no ? :-)
I guess they have a lot more unused land area that no-one cares about down in Australia, but here in Quebec, all the enviros are up in arms about Hydro's plans for mini-hydro stations -- so I doubt they would go for this kind of maxi-solar idea, which also covers up large tracts of land (as do hundreds of windmills).
OTOH, as I recall, the Aussies have their own enviro activists - like the Midnight Oil rock group - who apparently want to leave the entire desert outback in perfectly pristine condition.
Wonder what they make of this solar tower project ? NIMBY as usual ?
Jaro
-----Original Message-----
From: Adam McLean [mailto:adam.mclean@utoronto.ca]
Sent: Friday January 03, 2003 10:09 PM
To: cdn-nucl-l@informer2.cis.McMaster.CA
Subject: [cdn-nucl-l] Australia Plans 1-Km High Structure, Taller Than CN Tower
Posted on Yahoo News on January 2, 2003 and at:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030103/wl_canada_nm/cana
da_energy_australia_tower_col_1