From time to time – and now much more with the rise of the Lord of the Rings series – it’s worth remembering that in Israel there is “The eye of Sauron”, A huge solar tower that dazzles those who see it.
Many kilometers away you can see the Ashalim solar thermal power plant. It is in the Negev desert. According to a recent New York Times article about it, there are those who can see it from space.
It is a 240-meter high tower that has a blinding pool at its peak that has nothing to envy to the technological devices that appear in science fiction films or novels.
“It is the eye of Sauron”, “It is like a sun, a second sun”, “A lighthouse without a sea”, “Absolutely disturbing”. Thus the few inhabitants of Ashalim describe this plant that for many it is an engineering masterpiece and, for many others, a waste of money.
How does it work?
Since 2019, the tower has been using solar energy to provide electricity to tens of thousands of homes.
It is inactive at night. It works during the day. The sunlight is reflected in the more than 50,000 mirrors placed on the surrounding dune and is concentrated in the water boiler in the turret.
Light heats water to 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit, turning it into steam, in what is known as the solar thermal energy process. Once this has happened, the steam is channeled to ground level and spins the turbines to create electricity.
The year it was completed, the tower was the tallest of its kind in the world. It has recently been surpassed by one built in the United Arab Emirates, which is only a few meters higher.
an expensive project
One of the biggest criticisms of the project is whether or not it was worth so much expense in relation to the benefits it offers.
The broader popular discourse holds that electricity from the tower proved to be much more expensive than that created by other forms of solar energy technology.
To carry it out, several million dollars have been spent on infrastructure in Ashalim. The money came from Megalim solar energythe multinational consortium that built it and currently manages it.
Source: Clarin
