Australia to build one km tall power tower

The world’s tallest man-made structure could soon be towering over the Australian outback as part of a plan to capitalise on the global...

The world’s tallest man-made structure could soon be towering over the Australian outback as part of a plan to capitalise on the global push for greater use of renewable energy. By 2006, Australian power company EnviroMission Ltd hopes to build a 1,000m solar tower in New South Wales state, a structure that would be more than twice the height of Malaysia’s Petronas Towers, the world’s tallest buildings.

The 200 megawatt Solar Tower, which will cost A$1 billion to build, will be of similar width to a football field and will stand in the centre of a massive glass roof spanning seven kilometres in

diameter.

Despite its size, the technology is simple — the sun heats the air under the glass roof, which slopes upwards from three metres at its outer perimeter to 25 metres at the tower base. As the hot air rises, a powerful updraft is also created by the tower that allows air to be continually sucked through 32 turbines, which spins to generate power 24 hours a day.

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‘‘Initially people told me ‘you’re a dreamer’, there’s no way anything that high can be built, there’s no way it can work,’’ Enviro Mission chief executive officer Roger Davey said. ‘‘But now we have got to the point where it’s not if it can be built, but when it can be built.’’

EnviroMission hopes to begin construction on the solar tower before the end of the year and be generating enough electricity to supply 200,000 homes around the beginning of 2006.

It will generate about 650 gigawatt hours (GWH) a year towards Australia’s mandated renewable energy target, which requires electricity retailers to supply 9,500 GWH of renewable energy a year by 2010.

The company also hopes the project will save more than 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases a year that might otherwise have been emitted through coal or oil-fired power stations. The company has signed agreements with Australian-listed Leighton Holdings Ltd and US-listed Energen Corp to determine the commercial feasibility of the solar tower, which Time magazine recently voted among the ‘‘Best Inventions of the Year’’. (Reuters)