BrightSource Energy, started by American-Israeli solar pioneer Arnold Goldman, has contracts to supply California utility PG&E (PCG) with up to 900 megawatts of solar electricity from power plants to be built in the Mojave Desert on the California-Nevada border. BrightSource has developed a new solar technology, dubbed distributed power tower, that focuses fields of sun-tracking mirrors called heliostats on a tower containing a water-filled boiler. The sun’s rays superheat the water and the resulting steam drives an electricity-generating turbine.
This technology is currently ~90% cheaper than photovoltaics,
2 comments:
There is a big one of these setups in Spain that I saw on the TeeVee. The focus point for the mirrors gets it to like 1200 deg. centigrade. It looked extermely bright.
For a more down to earth example of what the focused power of the sun can do, see:
http://cockeyed.com/incredible/solardish/dish01.shtml
-m
I mentioned this to Paul, Tabor, and Ron at lunch, but figured I'd get in on this blogging thing too.
Since the water's being superheated anyways, you could combine this with a water purification plant and kill two birds with one stone.
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