Artificial Intelligence and Solar power Breakthrough

[bladefd]

Big breakthrough announced today. They created software for focusing mirrors on a single point and capture the heat being generated. They were able to hit over 1,800 degrees Celsius :eek:

It certainly won't be something for residential level but it can be harnessed for centralized production ala power plant and private sector for steel/cement/etc production. It's not enough heat for sustained nuclear fusion reactor unfortunately but still huge breakthrough


A secretive startup backed by Bill Gates has achieved a solar breakthrough aimed at saving the planet.

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."

Heliogen, which is also backed by billionaire Los Angeles Times owner Patrick Soon-Shiong, believes the patented technology will be able to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions from industry. Cement, for example, accounts for 7% of global CO2 emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.

"Bill and the team have truly now harnessed the sun," Soon-Shiong, who also sits on the Heliogen board, told CNN Business. "The potential to humankind is enormous. ... The potential to business is unfathomable."



Heliogen uses computer vision software, automatic edge detection and other sophisticated technology to train a field of mirrors to reflect solar beams to one single spot.

"If you take a thousand mirrors and have them align exactly to a single point, you can achieve extremely, extremely high temperatures," Gross said, who added that Heliogen made its breakthrough on the first day it turned its plant on.

Heliogen said it is generating so much heat that its technology could eventually be used to create clean hydrogen at scale. That carbon-free hydrogen could then be turned into a fuel for trucks and airplanes.

"If you can make hydrogen that's green, that's a gamechanger," said Gross. "Long term, we want to be the green hydrogen company."https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/11/19/business/heliogen-solar-energy-bill-gates/index.html

[Shogon]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILIhh32URRM

[MaxFly]

Big breakthrough announced today. They created software for focusing mirrors on a single point and capture the heat being generated. They were able to hit over 1,800 degrees Celsius :eek:

It certainly won't be something for residential level but it can be harnessed for centralized production ala power plant and private sector for steel/cement/etc production. It's not enough heat for sustained nuclear fusion reactor unfortunately but still huge breakthrough

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/11/19/business/heliogen-solar-energy-bill-gates/index.html

This is pretty awesome. I watched a video not too long ago by CNBC on a new technology and process for making cement. One of the main issues highlighted was the high energy use in creating and drying mixed cement during the old process. It's great to see the advent of new technology applied to exiting processes to make them more efficient.

Oh, and there's Bill Gates again... that "privileged white guy who thinks he knows what he's talking about."

The Janicki Omniprocessor (turns waste water to pure water one site) is one of my favorite things he has done. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVzppWSIFU0

That, this, and his other work and investments in the clean energy space are definitely something to follow.

[insidehoops]

Thought solar power would be more widespread by now.

[BarberSchool]

Nuclear FUSION (not fission) will eclipse any and all other power sources. It will happen in our lifetimes.

[BarberSchool]

Thought solar power would be more widespread by now.
Me too.
But several factors have really hurt it:

1. Federal & state subsidies varied in availability and degree per state/region.
2. Fossil fuel industry both domestically and from OPEC have lobbied heavily to limit as much as they can about its progress.
3. The handful of domestic and western manufacturers were undermined by East Asian manufacturing, whose quality gave many first time adopters a bad taste in their mouth.

[DoctorP]

https://media3.giphy.com/media/l46CbUJPXiDPEkJcA/source.gif

DEY KNOW

[Jasper]

Me too.
But several factors have really hurt it:

1. Federal & state subsidies varied in availability and degree per state/region.
2. Fossil fuel industry both domestically and from OPEC have lobbied heavily to limit as much as they can about its progress.
3. The handful of domestic and western manufacturers were undermined by East Asian manufacturing, whose quality gave many first time adopters a bad taste in their mouth.

Any topic like this will put Trumps buddies in the coal industry on watch alert....
Trump believes there is no pollution ....

Got to be rebellious and demand our government to make this cheap and effective to show the world the way...

[CelticBaller]

Thought solar power would be more widespread by now.

They should have acres of solar panels in the deserts

[MaxFly]

They should have acres of solar panels in the deserts

Efficiently carrying that power to major cities would be a challenge, but we should certainly start building the infrastructure to make this a reality, as well as investing in the battery research necessary to store energy generated from solar arrays and wind turbines.

We should also be building new, modern nuclear power plants.

[FultzNationRISE]

Thought solar power would be more widespread by now.

I kinda did too.

Same with electric cars.

Feels like weve been hearin about these things for decades now. But theyre still quite a rarity in everyday life.

Hopefully soon.

[rawimpact]

Good way to harness the sun's power without having to burn anything. Always wondered why they never developed a concave large dome and harness that energy in the form of heat at the focal point.

Solar panels are still not efficient enough unfortunately and they certainly wouldn't be a good investment where I live because of our nor'easters and storms. I've considered them second hand from ebay though but they ship out of Gilbert AZ so shipping kills the cost/watt.

My brother just recently got Tesla installed on their home for like 1.50/watt in socal which I thought was a good deal for a reputable company. He got like a 15kw system which took up nearly all of the roof space on his 4500sqft home. That alone would worry me since he has those mexican clay style tiles which I thought were fragile

[Overdrive]

Good way to harness the sun's power without having to burn anything. Always wondered why they never developed a concave large dome and harness that energy in the form of heat at the focal point.

Solar panels are still not efficient enough unfortunately and they certainly wouldn't be a good investment where I live because of our nor'easters and storms. I've considered them second hand from ebay though but they ship out of Gilbert AZ so shipping kills the cost/watt.

My brother just recently got Tesla installed on their home for like 1.50/watt in socal which I thought was a good deal for a reputable company. He got like a 15kw system which took up nearly all of the roof space on his 4500sqft home. That alone would worry me since he has those mexican clay style tiles which I thought were fragile

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

No offense, but sometimes I wonder how people don't know such things.

[rawimpact]

No offense, but sometimes I wonder how people don't know such things.

Oh I don't know, maybe because when's the last time one has seen one of these? Or how often does something like this make the news?

I don't go randomly searching for CSP since it's not something I can buy and put in my backyard....

[DoctorP]

fingers crossed. have to keep pushing the clean energy methods to the limit

[Rooster]

Good way to harness the sun's power without having to burn anything. Always wondered why they never developed a concave large dome and harness that energy in the form of heat at the focal point.

Solar panels are still not efficient enough unfortunately and they certainly wouldn't be a good investment where I live because of our nor'easters and storms. I've considered them second hand from ebay though but they ship out of Gilbert AZ so shipping kills the cost/watt.

My brother just recently got Tesla installed on their home for like 1.50/watt in socal which I thought was a good deal for a reputable company. He got like a 15kw system which took up nearly all of the roof space on his 4500sqft home. That alone would worry me since he has those mexican clay style tiles which I thought were fragile

Wow you brother got a bargain deal . I got mine 5 years ago and I spent $2.25/watt CASH but smaller 7.8 kw System LG solar panels in my primary home of 4100 sq in So Cal. This is from reputable electrical company that has been in business for over 20 years . This is the most overlooked but very important in choosing solar installers , workmanship warranty, because any business can go down and you gonna spent out of pocket to repair any breakdown. So far I only have one repair done on inverters .

From what I recall , Solar City /Tesla have those cheap Chinese solar panels and that was red flag considering this is long term commitment. Salesman was also trying to convince me to lease it and I asked him that if you gonna guys gonna solidify panels in my roof, what if I sell my home and the answer was getting complicated going on different direction to confuse me. The salesman pretty much trying to sway me from purchasing it so I knew something was not making any sense. The final coffin was a mechanical lien . So I did my own due diligence , and figure out the Federal rebate of 30% (Solar City goal was to collect that) around that time and that was a no brainer after that.

The most underrated part of having solar is the net metering that is grandfather at least here in So Cal. I believed other states does not have that.


But the most satisfying part of all that is I have multibag the solar investments from SolarEdge, Ephase and Sunpower and will set to realize that in 2023.

[bladefd]

Wow you brother got a bargain deal . I got mine 5 years ago and I spent $2.25/watt CASH but smaller 7.8 kw System LG solar panels in my primary home of 4100 sq in So Cal. This is from reputable electrical company that has been in business for over 20 years . This is the most overlooked but very important in choosing solar installers , workmanship warranty, because any business can go down and you gonna spent out of pocket to repair any breakdown. So far I only have one repair done on inverters .

From what I recall , Solar City /Tesla have those cheap Chinese solar panels and that was red flag considering this is long term commitment. Salesman was also trying to convince me to lease it and I asked him that if you gonna guys gonna solidify panels in my roof, what if I sell my home and the answer was getting complicated going on different direction to confuse me. The salesman pretty much trying to sway me from purchasing it so I knew something was not making any sense. The final coffin was a mechanical lien . So I did my own due diligence , and figure out the Federal rebate of 30% (Solar City goal was to collect that) around that time and that was a no brainer after that.

The most underrated part of having solar is the net metering that is grandfather at least here in So Cal. I believed other states does not have that.


But the most satisfying part of all that is I have multibag the solar investments from SolarEdge, Ephase and Sunpower and will set to realize that in 2023.

Some states also have SRECs on top of the federal tax credit so those solar lease companies make money off those SRECs as well. They get 30% federal tax credit, collect lease money from you monthly and collect SREC money from the state. They rip you off.

It's best to buy the solar system in cash or if you don't have cash, take a home equity line of credit for home improvement. Best way to go about it. Then you can collect the federal tax credit, take in the SREC yourself and not pay any lease money or electric bill ever again.

Also avoid any cheap Chinese companies. Go with LG or Samsung or Canadian solar. I feel Samsung has the best bang for the buck and arguably the best warranty. Canadian solar had the longest warranty last I checked. Tesla used to outsource solar panels to Samsung and in source the software portion, but I don't know what they do now. I know tesla opened up a facility in China and have couple in the USA - not sure which panels they are using nowadays.

[Jasper]

I plan on installing solar panels not as a major move , but more less as a backup