How concentrated solar power could fuel the future

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What if we could not only harness the power of the sun, but actually use it to run the entire planet?

Concentrated solar power (CSP) has the potential to do just that — using arrays of revolving mirrors called heliostats, light is reflected into a massive receiver. Thanks to recent advancements in technology, the cost to replicate these Sunlight Refineries™ is dropping. Soon solar energy will be cleaner and cheaper than using fossil fuels, which could mean adoption on a global scale.

Heliogen, a company founded by Bill Gross and backed by Bill Gates, wants to eliminate all uses of fossil fuels. Using cameras, AI, and machine learning, they are working to make these CSP systems smarter and much more efficient.

This episode is from Hard Reset, a Freethink original series about rebuilding the world from scratch and reimagining everything from first principles.

Catch more Hard Reset episodes on their channel: https://www.freethink.com/shows/hard-...

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TRANSCRIPT:

NARRATOR: This might look like a death ray, but it's not. It's actually...

One enormous, very accurate magnifying glass.

NARRATOR: This magnifying glass has a technical name, a sunlight refinery. To use it, find somewhere really sunny, plop down a bunch of mirrors, bounce the sunlight into a single spot and you can melt just about anything. Okay, so it is kind of death ray-ish. Why do this? Because manufacturing steel or cement requires a lot of heat and making something super hot has historically meant burning dinosaurs...

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