There is actually a Solar Power Generation system were a solar collector uses sunlight to melt salt which then circulates through pipes to a place were it heats up water to boiling and that steam then goes through a turbine thus generating electricity.
However to reach those temperatures a simple panel isn’t enough so what you have is a ton of mirrors over a large area all focusing the sunlight on a central tower were the salt-melting happens.
By the way, this stuff actually has benefits over solar such as the ability to generate power at night (basically you don’t extract all the heat from the molten salt during the day and just keep using it to boil water to feed the steam turbine during the night), plus it’s a bit more efficient than solar panels and like solar panels it’s also improving, throught things like using different salts.
Also Helios One from Fallout: New Vegas is based off of those, though I don’t think we’ve figured out how to make an Archimedes mirror out of one and a reflection satellite yet.
If you check here on table 5 you’ll see that common table salt (NaCl) melts at 801º C.
As for what’s used, in Chapter 2 of that paper they say “Molten salts consist of alkali metal or alkali metal halides and oxygen-containing salts”, so it’s not actually table salt that’s used in Generation 2 of those kind of power generators.
There is actually a Solar Power Generation system were a solar collector uses sunlight to melt salt which then circulates through pipes to a place were it heats up water to boiling and that steam then goes through a turbine thus generating electricity.
However to reach those temperatures a simple panel isn’t enough so what you have is a ton of mirrors over a large area all focusing the sunlight on a central tower were the salt-melting happens.
Here is an example.
By the way, this stuff actually has benefits over solar such as the ability to generate power at night (basically you don’t extract all the heat from the molten salt during the day and just keep using it to boil water to feed the steam turbine during the night), plus it’s a bit more efficient than solar panels and like solar panels it’s also improving, throught things like using different salts.
You can also choose to divert power to either new Vegas, the people, or a giant space laser which is really quite nice compared to traditional methods
You activated ARCHIMEDES?! What the hell are you thinking?!
you can’t just shoot a hole into the surface of mars!
It’s pretty much a required upgrade to be able to protect yourself from dropped or balistic nukes.
Also Helios One from Fallout: New Vegas is based off of those, though I don’t think we’ve figured out how to make an Archimedes mirror out of one and a reflection satellite yet.
Solar collection like this can also explode birds if they fly through the wrong area as it’s essentially like a magnifying glass and ants.
How hot does heat need to be to salt melting?
Depends on the salt used.
If you check here on table 5 you’ll see that common table salt (NaCl) melts at 801º C.
As for what’s used, in Chapter 2 of that paper they say “Molten salts consist of alkali metal or alkali metal halides and oxygen-containing salts”, so it’s not actually table salt that’s used in Generation 2 of those kind of power generators.
Thanks!
Do you know of the melting temperatures of any other substance you think I may be interested in?