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Secretive Energy Startup Backed By Bill Gates Achieves Solar Breakthrough (cnn.com) 156

Posted by msmash from the marching-forward dept.
A secretive startup backed by Bill Gates has achieved a solar breakthrough aimed at saving the planet. From a report: Heliogen, a clean energy company that emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, said it has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius. Essentially, Heliogen created a solar oven -- one capable of reaching temperatures that are roughly a quarter of what you'd find on the surface of the sun. The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes. In other words, carbon-free sunlight can replace fossil fuels in a heavy carbon-emitting corner of the economy that has been untouched by the clean energy revolution. "We are rolling out technology that can beat the price of fossil fuels and also not make the CO2 emissions," Bill Gross, Heliogen's founder and CEO, told CNN Business. "And that's really the holy grail."
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Secretive Energy Startup Backed By Bill Gates Achieves Solar Breakthrough More

Secretive Energy Startup Backed By Bill Gates Achieves Solar Breakthrough

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  • For those who were curious: 5600 Celsius [caltech.edu]. So I guess "above 1000 C" could be considered "in the neighborhood".

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BobPaul ( 710574 ) *

      The article says "roughly a quarter the temperature of the surface of the sun". 1000 could be considered roughly 1400. The hottest solar concentrators I've read about were just under 600C (~580). I don't see anything in the article or summary that suggests 1000 is approximately the temp of the sun's surface.

      • Sun's surface temperature is roughly 5780 kelvins, a quarter of which is 1445 kelvins, which is around 1170 degrees Celsius, which sounds like "above !000 degrees Celsius" to me. Also the idea that we could achieve this otherwise is ridiculous, since synthetic hydrogen can be stored and used to generate process heat at basically any grade. It's also more practical in places with diffuse daylight.

  • Nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)

    by tarokejihi ( 5097645 )

    This is definitively not new nor innovative. Except may be for the use of the I.A. buzzword. Please refer to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    • Re:Nothing new (Score:5, Informative)

      by cb88 ( 1410145 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:31PM (#59431780)
      The novel thing they are doing is direct targeting, most other furnaces that can reach those temps have a secondary focusing mirror. So this is cheaper and probably also more resilient to changes in the mirrors.

    • Re:Nothing new (Score:4, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:33PM (#59431794)
      What is new is the aiming methodology. The cnn article could be better but it appears maintaining all the mirrors correctly aimed as the sun moves is what limited previous solar collectors (such as what you linked) from producing energy at scale, economically. It refers to previous implementations "adding steel to make the technology stiffer and sturdier" which implies to me that an open-loop system based on calibration ahead of time wasn't good enough - there needs to be feedback. (It alludes to some patent so I guess somebody could go figure out specifically what they are talking about)..

      • > What is new is the aiming methodology. The cnn article could be better but it appears maintaining all the mirrors correctly aimed as the sun moves is what limited previous solar collectors

        Which is both interesting and kind of shocking that it is new. The sun's motion across the sky is hardly unpredictable, and we've had auto-tracking telescopes even at the consumer level for decades. How was this a hard problem to solve?

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by cb88 ( 1410145 )
          Because its hard to close that control loop cheaply... you could do it open loop and just hope all the mirrors line up.

          Auto tracking telescopes are not at the scale of cheapness or simplicity required.

          Since it is closed loop you can also cheapen the control mechanisms (they don't have to be as rigid)... and control them actively since they don't have to care about withstanding the wind or thermal expansion to the degree that would be required for open loop control to be precise enough etc... never mind how

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by apoc.famine ( 621563 )

          Because you're thinking about a single mirror, not acres of mirrors. And you're apparently not spent a lot of time using auto-tracking telescopes, because even those need regular and constant adjustment and calibration.

          Scaling this up, you're talking about hundreds to thousands of mirrors which all need to point at the exact same spot for this to work well. One option is to make fewer, larger mirrors, but then you're starting to run into issues of manufacturing, transporting, installing, and supporting thos

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

        It would be interesting to know exactly what the problems were. Solar thermal has always seemed to me like an area that would benefit a lot from someone putting a bit of effort into working on the basics, like aiming.

        • It would be interesting to know exactly what the problems were.

          It'll be interesting to see how this works at night. No, not trying to be funny, but 1000C+ daylight temps vanish when the sun goes down. Which means whatever you're heating rather quickly becomes....cool.

          If what you're heating is water or something similar, may not be a big deal Not so sure about concrete/cement/metal ores/whatever you're heating with this thing.

          On the plus side, this might be useful for redirecting orbital mirrors to prov

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by ceoyoyo ( 59147 )

            Solar thermal plants routinely use molten salt storage. It's very efficient (like 99%). You'd probably have to get a bit creative with the salt, because standard sodium chloride boils under 1500C, but presumably you could find something that's molten in the temperature range you'd like.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by sfcat ( 872532 )

              Solar thermal plants routinely use molten salt storage. It's very efficient (like 99%). You'd probably have to get a bit creative with the salt, because standard sodium chloride boils under 1500C, but presumably you could find something that's molten in the temperature range you'd like.

              Efficient at what exactly? Molten salt only holds heat for about 6 hours. Then you have the 50% loss from converting heat to electricity. Then 50% on the way back to heat. So its a good short term heat battery and is useful for shifting power a few hours forward but not useful for electricity. PS this technology was developed for nuclear where its very useful.

          • It'll be interesting to see how this works at night.
            Well, the summary mentions particularly making concrete ... I don't know a concrete plant that is producing concrete at night ...

    • They forgot to put Blockchain in the press release.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Locutus ( 9039 )
      right, Solar One and Solar Two and I believe the first commercial solar concentrating tower was built in 1980 or 81.

      Bill Gates has been in the press quite a bit lately so I wonder if he has an illness or something and is ramping up marketing for better public opinion when announced. Or something.

      LoB

  • AI buzzword (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dorianny ( 1847922 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:23PM (#59431722) Journal
    Claiming that using a computer to align mirrors qualifies as "Artificial Intelligence," is quite the stretch to say the least

    • Perhaps artificial intelligence is to intelligence as artificial strawberry is to a fruit.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Mr D from 63 ( 3395377 )

      Claiming that using a computer to align mirrors qualifies as "Artificial Intelligence," is quite the stretch to say the least

      Definition

      Artificial Intelligence: Any algorithm application or automation technology in need of investors.

  • Solar Furnace at Odeillo, 3500C (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LionKimbro ( 200000 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:23PM (#59431724) Homepage

    I don't understand this business of breaking 1,000. There are several solar furnaces that get much hotter.

    * Solar Furnace at Odeillo, 3500C [wikipedia.org]
    * Solar furnace of Uzbekistan, 3000C [wikipedia.org]

    No artificial intelligence required, ...

    Now from the article:

    "The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes."

    I don't get it.

    • ... cheaper than fossil fuels.

      • Re:Solar Furnace at Odeillo, 3500C (Score:5, Insightful)

        by LionKimbro ( 200000 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:36PM (#59431818) Homepage

        So the article says, "Its biggest selling point is the fact that, unlike fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, sunlight is free. And Heliogen argues its technology is already economical against fossil fuels because of its reliance on AI."

        I don't understand that. This doesn't make any sense to me.

        I am 100% behind Concentrated Solar Power, [wikipedia.org] I think it's awesome, and I am 100% for this kind of a technology. What I am not for, is flaky articles that just say "breakthrough," when I know that there are several solar furnaces that 50 years ago broke 1000 degrees Celsius.

        • Re:Solar Furnace at Odeillo, 3500C (Score:5, Insightful)

          by apoc.famine ( 621563 ) <apoc.famine@g m a i l . com> on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @04:24PM (#59432124) Journal

          I don't understand that. This doesn't make any sense to me.

          Allow me to translate the bullshit for you then:

          Instead of a static field of solar concentrating mirrors, we built a sun-tracking, auto-calibrating array. This allows us to maximize the amount of sun collected by the array, producing more power with less mirrors, and thus at a lower cost. We believe that if this gets scaled up, it will be substantially cheaper than using fossil fuels to achieve high temperatures.

          • Allow me to translate the bullshit for you then:

            Instead of a static field of solar concentrating mirrors, we built a sun-tracking, auto-calibrating array. This allows us to maximize the amount of sun collected by the array, producing more power with less mirrors, and thus at a lower cost. We believe that if this gets scaled up, it will be substantially cheaper than using fossil fuels to achieve high temperatures.

            Or that's what they want you to conclude from their bullshit.

          • This is pretty much what I assumed they meant just from the summary -- but I don't see how any level of AI is really even required to do this, plain old normal software could be written to manage the reflector array, I'd think.

            • Just assume 100 reflectors having inaccurate aim and a feedbacksystem with sensors at the collector which don't know where the light is coming from. Then you write your first algorithm and you get 950 degrees with 100 reflectors. Then the second algorithm achieves 960 degrees but not always. The new routine achieves 1000 degrees pretty consistently and you can make your collector a little bit smaller. This is only about small improvements. I don't believe the breakthrough part. Before the new AI thingy the

    • Re:Solar Furnace at Odeillo, 3500C (Score:4, Informative)

      by ceoyoyo ( 59147 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @04:14PM (#59432060)

      Those are both building sized parabolic reflectors. That kind of design would be expensive, probably limit capacity factor, and limits on how much it can scale up.

      The Heliogen thing seems to be a field of independent mirrors and a tower. Existing similar designs don't get so hot, but the field of mirrors design is nice because you can basically add as many mirrors as you want, and you don't have to worry about building a structure big enough to support and move them all as one unit.

      It seems likely that Heliogen has put some effort into aiming systems for the individual mirrors (and probably mirror design and field layout) so they can get them to focus better than previous systems.

    • I don't get it.

      Is that because you didn't look at either the pictures in the link you posted nor the ones in TFA? Maybe you need to compare more than just total temperature to find out what it is you're missing.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Locutus ( 9039 )
      Bill Gates is exceptionally good at marketing.

      LoB

  • Look out ants (Score:3, Funny)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx ( 565205 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:25PM (#59431738)
    Now we have a BF magnifying glass!

  • He is claiming prior art.

  • I can't help but wonder how much of this directed light would have radiated back into space. Now it's going to be converted into concentrated heat close to the surface without a clear path back into space? Instead of releasing stored energy from within the earth's system (aka, burning fossil fuels) and releasing greenhouse gases that help trap the sun's energy, we're just going to cut out the middle man and trap the sun's energy directly?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Junta ( 36770 )

      If you need this amount of heat, you are having the problem either way.

      If you are combusting carbon fuel to get the heat, then you get the added problem of the combustion product hanging out and trapping future heat that you didn't want.

      I don't know if this is a particularly critical contributor to the problem, but it would in principle be less problematic than alternative ways to get to the desired temperature, at least from an environmental facet.

    • The heat will still radiate back into space, it will just happen after it's done useful work. The structure that gets heated during the day will cool off at night just the same as it would have from the empty field (before the mirrors got installed ...).

    • Re:Couldn't this also cause global heating? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:47PM (#59431904)

      Instead of releasing stored energy from within the earth's system (aka, burning fossil fuels) and releasing greenhouse gases that help trap the sun's energy, we're just going to cut out the middle man and trap the sun's energy directly?

      The difference is that this heat will be radiated back to space within a few hours, whereas greenhouse gasses will keep capturing extra heat for centuries.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by BobPaul ( 710574 ) *

      Instead of releasing stored energy from within the earth's system (aka, burning fossil fuels) and releasing greenhouse gases that help trap the sun's energy, we're just going to cut out the middle man and trap the sun's energy directly?

      What middle man?

      One process creates a bunch of localized heat and releases greenhouse gases that help to trap heat long-term. The other process creates the exact same amount of localized heat and doesn't release greenhouse gasses.

    • All of this energy already reached the Earth's surface. If the mirrors weren't focusing it, it would just heat the ground under the panels by roughly the same amount, and eventually radiate out into space (modulo the interference effect of greenhouse gases). Capturing that energy, and using it to do stuff before it radiates back out doesn't affect the heat balance in a meaningful way; it still radiates from wherever we captured it, at roughly the same overall rate as if it hadn't been captured (a higher rat

  • What... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Smidge204 ( 605297 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:28PM (#59431764) Journal

    First off, I don't see any reason why a temperature of 1000C would require something so complicated. Electric kilns, which use kanthal heating elements, routinely reach up to 1400C for firing porcelain ceramics. Steel is already processed using electric arc furnaces. Sure, it's nice to use the heat of the sun directly and avoid the inefficiency of converting it to electric first, but with electricity you don't need to have the solar collection immediately where you're doing the materials processing.

    Second, temperature alone means nothing; That about power? A candle flame is about 1000C but you'll never boil a pot of water with it because it doesn't have the power. For solar, power is proportional to collection surface area; So the meaningful question is not how high a temperature you can reach using concentrating solar (The Odeillo solar furnace gets yup to 3500C!) but how big can this system scale to get the power you need?
    =Smidge=

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      I don't see any reason why a temperature of 1000C would require something so complicated.

      When you're a billionaire, you want to Rube-Goldberg-ify everything. Arguably it's what Bill did to Windows too.

    • It's more a matter of scale than it is the maximum attainable temperature.
  • We already have a billionaire saving the world, Elon Musk. Now one more?

    Come on kids sort it out. Dont fight like this.

    Gates, you save Planet Earth.

    Now, Elon, be a good boy and save Planet Mars

    OK? No more fighting. There you go.

  • Glaring Screen of Death

  • Looks like it is the same solar thermal system, thousands of mirrors reflecting sunlight into the a tank of fluid, may be water, may be salt.

    But with that many mirrors, the focus spot is not very small, it is still diffused. This breakthrough is to use some sort of vision detection and feedback to make sure the focus is extremely tight. Then you get much hotter temp.

    It is a non trivial problem creating this feedback loop. When one spot is off target, how do the mirrors know who is out of alignment? Wond

    • It is a non trivial problem creating this feedback loop. When one spot is off target, how do the mirrors know who is out of alignment?

      This doesn't sound especially hard if you only move one mirror in any given direction at once. You could move four or maybe six mirrors at once, but always in differing directions.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by SirSlud ( 67381 )

        Lots of problems don't sound hard until you're the one working on it.

      • Thousand mirrors shine on the central tower. 999 are correct. One is off center by 2 inches.

        Which mirror is out of whack?

        My solution: Finding: Add a small vibrator to each mirror. Turn it on for 500, and off for the other 500. Is the off center spot vibrates? Yes/No reduces the problem size of 1000 to 500. Rest of the logic is left as a trivial exercise to the reader.

        Fixing: move the mirror till the off spot merger with the main spot.

        Starting problem: How do you get 999 to focus on one spot? Move all

  • Using an array of solar mirrors to achieve very high temperature has been around for years.

    For example, in Seville, Spain [technologyreview.com] (2011); Nevada's Crescent Dunes [wikipedia.org] (2016), and many [climatecentral.org] others [wikipedia.org] (2013, ...).

  • Natural disaster for critters (Score:3)

    by ElitistWhiner ( 79961 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @03:53PM (#59431942) Journal

    Mojave desert is full of de-energized towers in fields of mirrors; shutdown due to several reasons but mostly bird deaths. Critters are attracted to the facility which zap them as they fly through the intense heat zones. They also had technical difficulties which I haven't seen updated on the heating system melting in the tower. This sounds like it has been addressed.

    Fly this baby above earth and transmit packets down to ground for distribution at scale.

    • Let's be real though, without Caesar's Legion causing havoc HELIOS 1 would have worked just fine.

    • shutdown due to several reasons but mostly bird deaths

      No, shutdown due to stupidity. The same stupidity that is seeing vaping products removed from shelves due to 40 deaths while 500 die daily from cigarettes. To the surviving birds? I say let them breath coal.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by epine ( 68316 )

        The same stupidity that is seeing vaping products removed from shelves due to 40 deaths while 500 die daily from cigarettes.

        Chicago Tylenol murders [wikipedia.org]

        The Chicago Tylenol Murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. A total of seven people died in the original poisonings, with several more deaths in subsequent copycat crimes.

        Not only d

  • I think they discovered the Solex.

  • Breathless Hyperbole (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Tough Love ( 215404 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @04:23PM (#59432110)

    Don't get me wrong, I can see benefits of inexpensive large scale solar ovens. But saving the planet? Give me a break. Just considering one of the misty eyed claims: making cement. Sure, a solar oven could reduce the fossil fuel footprint, if the cement is not already being made with solar power of course (not a safe assumption) however, that is not the major environmental impact of cement, far from it. The big issue is the Co2 produced when converting calcium carbonate to lime, which will be the same no matter what method is used to heat the CaCO3.

    I suppose the entire announcement is packed with similar wild and/or misleading exaggerations. Too bad, if this reveal were stated more soberly and factually, it would be considerably more impressive. Who TF wrote that press release?

    • Sure, a solar oven could reduce the fossil fuel footprint, if the cement is not already being made with solar power of course (not a safe assumption) however, that is not the major environmental impact of cement, far from it.

      This article [archive.org] says:

      the cement industry produces 5% of global man-made CO2 emissions, of which 50% is from the chemical process, and 40% from burning fuel.

      So if 50% is, in your words, "far from" 40%, then you are correct, the energy required to convert calcium carbonate to lime is far

  • Concentrated solar oven: also a spectacular (and spectacularly painful) death. To be featured in Marvel film to be named later.
  • The one thing with collector solar farms is the insane heat concentrated in a short area. There are videos of birds being fried as they accidentally fly through various solar farms. https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-solar-bird-deaths-20160831-snap-story.html

  • At least in the article. Odeillo solar furnace reach 3500ÂC. The problem is to find a way to use or store this power.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

    Maybe they did really a technology breakthrought in the way heat is used, but as is the article looks like bullshit with AI.

  • Because without the massive tax subsidies, exemptions, set-asides, exclusions, and depreciation that fossil fuel forges get, won't solar forges be at a disadvantage, even if they're extremely cheap?

  • What was patentable???? "With AI"? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Tuesday November 19, 2019 @07:02PM (#59432944) Journal

    Heliogen, a clean energy company that emerged from stealth mode on Tuesday, said it has discovered a way to use artificial intelligence and a field of mirrors to reflect so much sunlight that it generates extreme heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius.

    Essentially, Heliogen created a solar oven â" one capable of reaching temperatures that are roughly a quarter of what you'd find on the surface of the sun.

    The breakthrough means that, for the first time, concentrated solar energy can be used to create the extreme heat required to make cement, steel, glass and other industrial processes.

    "We are rolling out technology that can beat the price of fossil fuels and also not make the CO2 emissions,".

    It's VERY nice that someone finally got around to actually doing the engineering for a design, and found, as hoped, that the overall cost, using modern mirror material and computer controlled aiming machinery, came out cheaper than burning fossil fuels.

    But "discovered"? "breakthrough"? How to do this has been known, and straightforward, for centuries. (Archimedes is reported to have done this trick to set fire to an invading fleet of warships. The lighthouse lenses designed by Augustin-Jean Fresnel in the early 17th century were exactly an equivalent optical configuration, running backward to throw as much as possible of the light from a lamp as a collimated beam.)

    You use mirrors, lenses, and/or prisms to route the light so that the object "sees" the sun in all, or most, directions:
      - The blackbody temperature of the object - the temperature it approaches in the absence of heat being conducted away by air and supports - will be the average over the "sky" it experiences, so if it "sees" sun in all directions, it's the surface temperature of the sun - derated slightly for the passage through the atmosphere (which scatters part of the light energy and replaces some or all in bands where it's not fully transparent with its own temperature) and for any defocusing of the sun's image (which makes it weaker but can't make it stronger.)
      - The RATE at which the object collects heat will be the flux that hits it minus the flux from a black body of its size at its current temperature, times the blackness of the object (perfectly black: 100%, perfect mirror, 0%)

    "AI"? Why the heck do you need AI? It's not like the apparent path of the sun isn't known in advance. Ditto (to the extent it's significant) the refraction of the atmosphere - or a "weather tweak" could be simply computed.

    Remember the bursts of patents for doing ordinary manufacturing processes "with a computer" and ordinary business processes "on the internet"? This looks like the start of a new wave of patents to do things we've done for centuries "with A.I."

  • I have a very hard time buying that this is any kind of meaningful breakthrough. Aligning mirrors to a single point can't be much of an issue. If calibration is such an issue you could simply have each mirror target a calibration plate a meter or two to the right of the actual collector plate and then translate by that distance to the left. A script kiddie could probably design a program that could handle that operation in an afternoon. You might need a percent or two more mirrors to deal with the ineff

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