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Project of a tower one kilometer high in Australia
[2003-01-03 09:33]

MELBOURNE (Reuters) - The highest structures ever constructed by man hand is 
about to be erected in Australia as part of a program for development of 
renewable energy.

To collect solar energy, Australian electricity company EnviroMission hopes to 
construct before 2006 a tower one kilometer high in the State of New South 
Wales. This structure would be twice higher than the Petronas towers, in 
Malaysia, the highest buildings of the world.

The construction of the solar tower, of a power of 200 megawatts, would cost 
563 millions dollars. Its width would be comparable to the size of a 
soccer/football terrain and it would be erected at the center of a glass roof 
of seven kilometers diameter.

The technology is simple: the sun reheats the air under the roof of glass, a 
powerful hot flowing thus goes up in the tower and powers 32 turbines that 
generate electricity continiously.

"The question is no longer to know if it will be constructed, but when it will 
be constructed", has declared to Reuters the EnviroMission leader, Roger Davey.

The Australian company hopes to begin the construction of the tower before the 
end of the year and to provide in electricity 200.000 houses by 2006. It hopes 
to allow the economy of 700.000 tons of  greenhouse effect gas per year .

The site retained for the construction of the tour is located near the frontier 
with the State of Victoria, 25 km north-east of the city of Mildura.