PROBLEMS | HOUSING AFFORDABILITY + AIRCRAFT SURPLUS CRISIS
California's median home price is expected to rise by 6.2% to $860,300 in 2024, with areas like Santa Barbara seeing surges as high as 32.2%. Monthly mortgage payments have nearly doubled since 2020, reaching $2,240 in 2023, making homeownership increasingly unaffordable, particularly for first-time buyers. Further, the aerospace industry retires ~600 aircraft annually, adding to the thousands of idle planes stored in boneyards like the 309 AMARG in Tucson. With a backlog of 15,933 aircraft orders and limited production capacity, managing retired fleets has become a persistent challenge.
PROPOSED SOLUTION
The Mojave Refinery bridges these challenges by repurposing decommissioned aircraft into modular, aordable housing. This scalable model tackles California’s housing crisis while reducing industrial waste, oering an innovative, sustainable approach to global issues.
The Mojave Refinery leverages advanced solar technology to convert desert solar irradiance into clean energy. Hundreds of heliostats with two-axis tracking systems, disseminated atop the circular roof structure, reflect sunlight onto a receiver at the tower's top, heating a molten salt mixture to over 500°C. This heat is transferred to underground technical processes, including generating steam in a powerhouse and driving turbines to produce electricity. Excess heat is stored in large thermal tanks, enabling continuous energy production even at night, achieving up to 65% operational capacity annually. The solar plant shall reduce carbon emissions significantly, create local jobs, and oer stable energy prices, aligning with global sustainability goals.
