The most forceful state district power plant in Belarus Novolukomlskaya has all chances to become famous because of the interesting engineer project. Alexander Kolesnik, the Candidate of Science in Physics and Mathematics from Minsk offered to equip power plant with a chimney, which will be one km in height and 250 m in diameter. This construction will utilize residual heat, which is not used in energetic. According to his estimation, one kilometer high chimney will payback its cost much more than a 500 m chimney. Truly speaking, a 1,5 km chimney would be much more favorable but this construction is unreal in some way. Many officials look with mistrust on his project.
What is the main idea of the project?
“I got the idea after I had read an article in “Knowledge is Power” in September 2002” Alexander Vasilevich says. For many years he had studied processes in plasma in research centers in universities and in the National Academy of Science and begun to research thermophysics not so far. “The article was about an interesting project, which took place in Australia. It was planned to construct five tower-shaped power plants with turbines, which would work on ascending air. Five kilometer high solar collectors would join towers and warmed over air would uprush through the chimney. Flow velocity would be 15 m per one second and 32 turbines would produce 220 megawatt. Prototype model of the station was constructed in 1982 in Manzaneras in Spain and had worked there successfully for seven years instead of three as it was planned by constructors. Its capacity was only 50 kilowatt because the effect of a 20 meter chimney was relatively law. There is another one construction of that type in Moscow. The idea is not new, you see, and I thought about replacing of solar energy with more stable energy source, which could work at night, too.
Heat sink of the state district power plant Novolukomlskaya where it discharges its excess heat could be such an energy source. The excess heat warm water till 10 grades in winter and till 30–40 in summer while its way on the network of chimneys. Thus, according to Alexander Vasilevich, the process will provide a 15 meters per second ascending air to produce 200 megawatt (1500 meter high tower provides 750 megawatt). It is supposed that Australian construction will provide the same amount of energy. A project’s cost will be 2000 dollars per one kilowatt which is equal to the Atomic Power Station cost.
And the main reason of the project is its perfect environmental security. Even the noise on the wind wheels of the one-kilometer high tower wouldn’t be heard and open air intakes may be equipped with the protective screen, which would protect blades from birds.
Do we have enough materials and equipment to construct the station? Yes, we do, Kolesnik says. Seismic resistant tower is an easy and light construction in comparison with the sky scrapers. Construction technologies are well done and calculation is known. Many works produce in quantity generating units with the power we need. What would be a cost of the construction? In Australia every tower will coast 750 million dollars and a chimney will coast nearly 375 million dollars. But they need to construct a huge solar collector and our energy supply, I mean a natatorium with the heat exchange system, must be much smaller. By the way, the infrastructure in the desert is undeveloped. Thus, the cost of the construction in Belarus will be nearly 300 million Euros.
Irina Trofilova
