A big country of aerospace with black technology

Chapter 207 Molten Salt Power Generation!

The desert is full of beacon smoke, and the sun sets in the Gobi.

A jeep driving on a gravel beach without any roads.

The bumpy car body made the people sitting on it feel like their overnight meals were about to be knocked out.

“Our infrastructure still has a lot of room for development!”

Zhang Xingyang, who was sitting in the back seat and clutching the armrest tightly, said after resisting the nausea that kept rising in his stomach.

At this time, domestic large-scale infrastructure construction was still in its infancy.

Especially in the northwest region, construction of various high-level roads and railways has not been completed.

Therefore, driving in the northwest region at this time was not a more pleasant thing like it would be in later generations, but a real torture.

"It is said that in a few years, a road will be opened here."

The driver was a young man in charge of geological exploration. Their geological team had been working nearby recently.

This time, he was also responsible for leading the way for Zhang Xingyang and the others.

On this land, they are the most familiar people holding trekking poles and geological hammers all year round.

"By then, if you come to Dunhuang again, it will be much easier."

The young man is also a native of the northwest. He studied geology in college. After graduation, he gave up his high-paying job in the east and returned here.

So when he said this, he had a sense of confidence unique to young people.

He believes that this area that created the myth of the Silk Road in the past one or two thousand years will also have its own development trajectory in the new era.

“A thousand years ago, this was an important center of the Silk Road.”

Zhang Xingyang thought silently in his heart:

"Now, a thousand years later, they are about to become a new energy center."

The important task for Zhang Xingyang and others when they came to the Northwest Gobi this time was to select a site for the country's first solar thermal power station.

In fact, solar thermal power stations are currently an extremely cutting-edge new energy research field internationally.

In the future energy development process, solar thermal power stations also play a very important role.

Especially in China, there are large areas in the northwest with no rain all year round and an average annual sunshine time of more than 2,000 hours.

In these areas, the development of solar power generation industry can not only drive local economic income, but also achieve the benefits of stabilizing aquatic plants and reducing wind and sand.

However, the current mainstream solar power generation method, photovoltaic power generation, has self-evident disadvantages.

That is, the power generation time is not stable enough, and power generation cannot be performed in rainy weather and at night.

During these times, the equipment can basically only consume the power it generated before.

In fact, current wind power and hydropower also have such shortcomings.

Wind power is greatly affected by wind speed, and its output power varies greatly during peak and valley periods.

Hydropower is affected by the flood season. In the summer, the power generation is large, but in the winter, it is basically impossible to generate electricity.

Photothermal power generation, to a large extent, converts originally unstable solar energy into stable thermal energy through indirect means.

Take hot molten salt photothermal power generation as an example.

On a sunny day, the molten salt in the molten salt tower will be heated to a liquid state by extremely high-temperature light under the action of concentrating mirrors.

These liquid high-temperature molten salts will heat the water in the AC pipes, thereby driving the rotation of the steam turbine to generate electricity.

From a certain perspective, humans have found another way to boil water.

"Here we are!"

Yi Yun, who was in charge of driving, parked the car steadily on a flat ground.

Facing them was a simple camp, which was obviously Yi Yun's temporary residence during their outdoor investigation.

"Hello, Professor Zhang."

After hearing the sound of the car, a middle-aged man with a rough face walked out of the tent.

Shake hands with Zhang Xingyang cordially.

"Hello, you are Captain Fu!"

Zhang Xingyang could feel that the other person's hands were covered with calluses. He had obviously been working on the front line for many years.

Captain Fu has been working on the plateau and Gobi for a long time. He always has a touch of plateau red on his face. After smiling, he said with some restraint:

"Just call me Lao Fu."

After a brief exchange of greetings, Captain Fu turned around and pointed at the large field behind him and said:

"Professor Zhang, this is the place we found. It should meet your standards."

Zhang Xingyang looked at the vast expanse of flat Gobi Desert from a distance.

There are basically no fluctuations of half a meter in the hundreds of hectares of land.

"The strata here are stable enough. In past records, earthquakes above magnitude 3 have never occurred."

The area in the northwest at the junction of plates is itself near the earthquake zone.

And the earthquake records of this land have a history of hundreds or thousands of years.

In such a long history, there has never been an earthquake above magnitude 3.

This means that the formation here is extremely stable.

"Also, the lighting conditions here are great."

Captain Fu said while flipping through the thick notebook in his hand:

"In the records last year and the year before last, the local sunshine hours here reached 2751 hours and 2978 hours respectively."

This length of illumination can be regarded as an extremely long period of illumination even when viewed across the country.

If it is longer, it can even break the domestic record of light duration.

After Zhang Xingyang heard these two data, he made some calculations in his mind.

Although molten salt power generation is less affected by the lighting time, it also requires a relatively long lighting time to maintain non-stop operation.

In previous laboratory tests, if you want to achieve 24 hours of non-stop operation, you basically need about 10 hours of light per day.

However, according to Zhang Xingyang, judging from local experience, in this place with stronger sunlight, it may only take 8-9 hours a day to keep the molten salt in a liquid state, thus maintaining 24-hour non-stop power generation.

Of course, this is based on the premise that the installed capacity is 100MW. If the installed capacity is increased to 200MW or even 500MW, the demand for lighting will be higher.

However, the first molten salt tower solar thermal power station will be an experimental power station and the installed capacity will not be very large.

It is impossible to maintain installed capacity above 200MW.

However, Zhang Xingyang cannot only consider the current construction situation, but also consider the future construction.

In the future, a 1,000MW solar thermal power station with an installed capacity comparable to that of a large thermal power station will also be built on this land.

Sufficient land for construction must be set aside for them.

In fact, in a few decades, this land that was barren in the past will undergo unprecedented changes.

At that time, the original Gobi Desert was dotted with photothermal power stations.

Even in space, you can see a dark desert dotted with bright pearls at night.

Those are high-temperature molten salts that will not go out at night, and the light they emit is also a lighthouse that will never go out in the sea of sand!

Zhang Xingyang quickly calculated the answer he wanted.

More than 2,700 hours of sunshine per year, even taking into account the time when the steam turbine is shut down for maintenance.

The time for generating electricity per year can also exceed 200 days.

Calculated in this way, the annual power generation will reach more than 1 billion kilowatt hours.

This is already a very huge number.

You know, the national power generation in 2001 was only 1.5 trillion kWh.

Once completed, this solar thermal power station will be able to achieve nearly one thousandth of the annual power generation!

"This will become the national energy center in the future, do you believe it? Old Fu!"

Zhang Xingyang pointed at the almost nothing Gobi in front of him and shouted loudly.

The old man, whose face was full of vicissitudes of life, blinked his eyes that were a little swollen from being out in the field all year round, and looked at the wind and sand in front of him in confusion.

He didn't understand the basis for Zhang Xingyang's words.

Even in this era when the domestic photovoltaic industry has not yet developed significantly, many people do not even know about solar cells.

However, this did not prevent him from being infected by Zhang Xingyang's passion and becoming a little excited:

"In that case, life here will be much better than now!"

Lao Fu is also from the northwest. Although his hometown is thousands of kilometers away from the Gobi Desert, there is not much difference between the two places.

The same wind and sand, the same drought, and the same poverty.

Since ancient times, this area has been outside the country's 400-millimetre precipitation line, which means that the ecology here is not suitable for farming.

Only small oasis areas can be planted.

However, these oases are greatly affected by climate and can only be maintained for a short period of time.

This has led to this area having been in poverty for thousands of years.

"It will be fine. After the initial investment, solar thermal power generation will bring in tens of millions of dollars in revenue every year."

Zhang Xingyang patiently explained to Lao Fu on the side.

Other people in the camp also came out at this time and began to listen to their conversation.

Most of these geological team members are natives of the northwest, and a few outsiders have also established a deep bond with this land.

"In fact, we can also build many photovoltaic power plants outside these photothermal power plants."

"Under the reflective mirrors and photovoltaic panels, a lot of water droplets will condense under the heat difference between morning and evening, so we can grow a lot of crops under them."

The model Zhang Xingyang mentioned has actually been proven to be very scientific and effective in later generations.

This kind of technology is also very rare around the world.

I am afraid that only Chinese people who have farming almost engraved in their genes can want to farm in such a place!

"In the early stages, we can also interplant some forage and then carry out silage farming."

Due to design problems, CSP power stations may not be suitable for grazing and can only be used for green storage farming.

But in fact, grazing can be carried out in photovoltaic solar power stations.

For the generation that has just entered the 21st century, most of their parents were farmers, and they themselves have done a lot of farm work or herded sheep since they were young.

So after listening to Zhang Xingyang's description, many people fell into reverie.

After these power stations were built, lush corn and pasture grew under the huge photovoltaic panels and mirrors.

Under the photovoltaic panels, groups of sheep, either snow-white or dotted with jet black, slowly and leisurely gnawed on the fresh green grass on the ground.

"Tan sheep itself is also a relatively high-end food ingredient in China. After this, we can expand the scope of Tan sheep breeding."

Zhang Xingyang continued to talk about the future development of Gobi.

For many people in the geological team, they had never imagined such a scene.

Some of them have also thought about the future development direction of their hometowns.

Some people think that there are no famous places of interest and no eye-catching scenery here.

There probably won't be any opportunities for development.

But at this time, Zhang Xingyang gave them another development direction for Gobi.

Become an energy center of the country.

A solar thermal power station covering an area of 850 hectares can generate more than 1 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity every year, and can also take into account certain agriculture and animal husbandry.

Not to mention, at this time, everyone is only talking about reducing carbon emissions, which can exceed hundreds of thousands of tons every year.

And how much land area can be used for photothermal power generation in this Gobi desert?

At least there is a suitable area of tens of thousands of square kilometers.

At this time, Yi Yun, who had driven Zhang Xingyang and the others here before, suddenly interrupted:

"The investment in this solar thermal power station won't be very small, right?"

"How long will it take to recover the cost?"

This question is very practical.

If it didn't generate economic benefits, it would be nothing more than a modern spectacle.

"The investment in the entire molten salt tower power station will be around one billion."

"Based on the power generation calculated based on today's lighting conditions, this power station can generate at least 1.2 billion kilowatt-hours per year."

"The annual income is around 400 million. After deducting various fixed costs, the net profit is around 100 million."

Zhang Xingyang slowly told everyone the results of his previous calculations, while looking at the people in front of him with expressions of disbelief.

"This power station will be able to recover its cost in no more than ten years."

From an ordinary person's perspective, ten years seems to be a long time to recover the cost.

However, in the field of power generation, there are many projects that take longer than this. Wind power almost always takes twenty years to recover its costs.

"Ten years!"

Yi Yun looked at the Gobi Desert where there was nothing now, as if he had already seen the prosperous scene here ten years later.

At that time, there would be countless tall towers standing here, with lights above them like dragon beads.

Under the mirror surface of the Gobi, the breeze blows through the tall corn-green gauze tents and pastures.

Occasionally, you can see free-range sheep in the photovoltaic power station.

"It would be great if it could actually happen."

After being silent for a long time, Captain Fu finally expressed his feelings.

That night, everyone sang a song around the kerosene stove at the stall next door:

"It was the wind in the valley that blew our red flag."

"We have flaming enthusiasm that overcomes all fatigue and coldness!"

Zhang Xingyang lay on the sleeping bag and looked into the pure night sky.

The Gobi without light pollution is full of stars.