thermo solar plant Chile desert
Thermo-Solar Power Plant
in Chile
Vocabulary
| emit | desert | hot/hotter/the hottest |
| scorch | radiation | ultraviolet (UV) |
| steam | neutral | put/put/put |
| Mars | futuristic | might as well |
| site | project | collect (2) |
| tower | molten | reflect (2) |
| heat | step (3) | to the tune of |
| watt | power (3) | megawatt |
| dawn | plant (3) | dawn of a new era |
| era | used to | speak/spoke/spoken |
| coal | source | come/came/come (2) |
| gap | show (2) | when it comes to |
| solar | store (2) | traditional |
| carbon | panel (2) | solar panel |
| output | generate | ceremony |
| shine | immense | power plant |
| expect | aim (2) | put to use |
| fill | goal (2) | carbon-neutral |
| able to |
Video
Transcript
To South America now, and Chile’s Atacama is one of the hottest deserts in the world. It is also the one with the highest levels of ultraviolet radiation emitted by the scorching sun.
Now Chileans are putting that UV to good use with Latin America’s very first thermo-solar power plant.
It might as well have been put on Mars. This futuristic site is the Sela Dominador power plant, a 1.4 billion dollar project that has been developed in Chile’s Atacama Desert.
More than 10,000 collectors follow the sun to reflect radiation onto the top of a tower.
250 meters high, the heat moves through molten salt, into water producing super-heated steam to the tune of 210 megawatt — enough to power 380,000 homes in the country.
At the opening ceremony Chilean president Sebastian Pinera spoke of the dawn of a new age.
Sebastian Pinera, Chilean President: “Chile used to be a poor country when it came to energy sources. We had little oil little coal little gas.
But we are immensely rich when it comes to the energy of the future we have the desert, with the highest radiation in the world as shown by those white colors seen at the top of the tower which are reflecting the solar radiation.”
The Cerro Dominador power plant is able to store solar energy for hours and even through the night, unlike traditional solar plants that only generate output when the sun is shining.
The plant is expected to fill the energy gap expected when Chile closes some of its coal plants .
It’s seen as a big step towards making Chile carbon-neutral, a goal the country is aiming for by 2050.
Questions
Rain, Rainy. All of South America is tropical with large swathes of tropical rain forests. True or false?
Snow, Snowing, Snowy. Does site resemble reality or science fiction? In the report, are farmers trying to grow crops in the desert?
Hot, Scorching. Is this a major enterprise?
Warm, Sunny. The thermo-solar plant relies on solar panels to generation electricity directly. Is this right or wrong?
Fog, Foggy. Does the apparatus or system generation significant amounts of power and energy?
Cool, Cloudy. Only CEOs, investors and engineers were present at the opening ceremony. Is this correct or incorrect?
Cold. Does thermo-solar power only function during the way with clear skies?
Storm, Stormy. Will this system be good or bad for the environment, both or neither?
Hurricane, Typhoon. What are the main sources of power in your city and country?
Thunder and Lightning. Has power consumption been increasing, decreasing or remaining the same?
Hail, Hailstorm. What do people think of electricity generated from coal or oil powered plants?
Wind, Windy. Do you see wind turbines and solar panels?
Frost, Freezing. What might happen in the future?
Tornado. What should people and governments do?
