It’s funny because it wasn’t closed by force, it was closed by nervous insurance companies, by companies not wanting to move their ships through if they’re not insured.

Like Iran isn’t patrolling it with some blockade, sinking any ship that dares run it. In fact they haven’t sunk a single ship as far as I know. They’ve just made it clear that they still pose a risk to any ship that passes And that theoretical risk is enough to spook insurance companies and stop ships.

Various common steels with a bunch of insulation around it usually, sometimes with a thin coating. The potassium/sodium/calcium nitrate mixes that are used with concentrated solar systems operating in range between 200 C and 600 C. So like, yah you don’t want to touch it, but it’s not gonna do much to steel. It can be somewhat corrosive, but, this is fairly easily mitigated by design.

Molten salt for heat transfer and thermal storage is a pretty mature technology that goes way back before we started using it in concentrated solar systems.

They’re actually quite similar to thermoelectric generators. But the potential difference between two semi conductors is created by a heat differential rather than by photon excitation.

Thermoelectric generators have been used on various rovers and deep space probes as well as in remote lighthouses.

You can use molten salt to move and store heat but you don’t put it through a turbine. Molten salt systems run it through a heat exchanger that heats steam or CO2.

I really like the concentrated solar systems that use molten salt, where rather than heating water directly, molten salt is heated and stored In large insulated tanks and tapped off to a heat exchanger to run the turbines, thus allowing power generation to match demand and continue at a constant rate even when light level very (such as at night).

One interesting idea is to use a concentrated solar system to run an Einstein–Szilard refrigerator, or some other absorption refrigerator cycle.

Solar thermal has some distinct advantages when you start talking about really big instillations. Especially when considering power storage, molten salt systems can store heat and allow the generators to keep working even at night. Much cheaper than batteries at very large scales.

Thermal solar systems are generally very efficient when the goal is heating something, not just generating power. So say, you want to run an ammonia plant without burning natural gas, or if you want to melt down metals for recycling. There are so many industrial applications where it’s a better way of doing it than using an electric heating element.

Yes, super critical CO2 turbines can work in such a system. As can sterling engines. Or thermoelectric solid state couples.

Any system that uses a temperature differential to generate power can be used. It’s just a matter of what you care about in a given situation. Upfront cost, mechanical reliability, noise/vibration, and availability of needed components play in to what makes the most sense.

Yes pretty much exactly. Organic is the US equivalent of Bio in the EU. There are differences in the specifics of what the standards are, some looser, some tighter.

In principle, Flour made from wheat grown using in inputs produced from inorganic sources. In practice a fairly complex set of standards designed to maximize long term soil health and minimize use of pest/fung/herbicides that could linger long term in the environment around a farm.