Startup invested by Bill Gates breakthrough: using sunlight and AI to reach a temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius, promising to change the heavy industry

Generating large amounts of heat is only the first step of Heliogen, they also want to become a unit producing clean hydrogen fuel.

In addition to making money, a solar organization certainly carries a dream to save the world based too much on fossil fuels. While it is hard to understand why such an organization must operate in secret, when they achieve a new breakthrough, we are all happy.

Heliogen, a clean energy startup backed by Bill Gates, has just announced a staggering number: it finds a way to apply artificial intelligence, along with a set of mirrors that reflect the sunlight to generate heat. to 1,000 degrees Celsius.

Basically, Heliogen creates a solar furnace, creating temperatures hot enough to do any job that requires high temperatures. This breakthrough has great implications: for the first time, we have gathered solar energy to create huge amounts of heat that can be applied to heavy industry, and also means that we will not need heat. emanating from burning fossil fuels as well.

“ We have launched a technology that can knock out fossil fuels, but does not even produce CO2 by-products. This is indeed the holy grail [of clean energy industry], ”Bill Gross, founder and CEO of Heliogen, told CNN.

In addition to Bill Gates, Heliogen startup is also backed by billionaire Patrick Soon-Shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times magazine. Soon-Shiong told CNN: ” Bill and his team have truly harnessed the power of the sun. “The potential for this is enormous, and the commercial potential of this technology is also difficult to measure .”

Heliogen leaders believe their new technology will significantly reduce the amount of greenhouse gases emitted from heavy industries, such as iron, steel, cement and glass production. For example, the cement industry causes serious pollution, for example, this sector’s CO2 emissions account for 7% of global carbon emissions.

Contrary to the solar panel technology you often see on rooftops, Heliogen improves on existing solar focusing technology – a technology that uses reflective surfaces to focus this sunlight on one spot. not new at all. Only, we haven’t created the sun’s rays hot enough to be used in heavy industry.

That’s when artificial intelligence raises its hand: “Let this nascent technology help out”

Clean energy has yet to find its way into heavy industries, which are polluting the atmosphere but indispensable in modern life; You look around, there is no important architectural building – hospitals, schools, hydroelectric dams … – not using concrete and steel?

That is the great significance of Heliogen, a technology that can replace the aging cement and steel production lines. That’s why the two billionaires, Bill Gates and Patrick Soon-Shiong, believe that Heliogen will change the world.

“ I am very happy to be one of the first people to believe in solar technology from the future of Bill Gross. “The ability to achieve high temperatures for heavy industry applications is a potential development, a stepping stone to the day we replace fossil fuels, ” said Bill Gates.

When other Sun-focused technology teams used steel to increase efficiency, Heliogen turned to a more modern solution, artificial intelligence. They use computer vision software – technology capable of observing and analyzing what the camera sees – to control an entire field of giant mirrors, to focus the sunlight each mirror receives on a single point. .

” When you can collect the reflected sunlight from a thousand mirrors into a single point, you can achieve extremely high temperatures ,” said Bill Gross, and he added that Heliogen achieved a breakthrough on the first try. system test.

According to Heliogen researchers, they can generate so much heat that this technology can be applied to clean hydrogen production on a large scale. Hydrogen will be turned into fuel for long-haul trucks and aircraft. ” If we make clean hydrogen, the world will change. In the long run, we want to be a company that produces clean hydrogen . ”

At the moment, Heliogen only focuses on perfecting its solar technology. The old problem is still there: it’s not always possible to rely on the Sun, where to get the sun when the sky is full of dark clouds, and at night? Heliogen says that they will use storage technology to store solar energy, for windy and rainy days.

Having achieved a breakthrough, it is time for Heliogen to focus on the application of technology in heavy industry. ” We want to increase the size of the system as soon as possible, ” Bill Gross said. Sooner or later, they will have to call for capital to increase production scale, they refuse to announce the amount of capital raised.

Another obstacle is persuading the heavy industry to abandon the habit of using fossil fuels, switching to the way of generating heat of the future. CEO Gross said that they had contacted several parties, and will soon announce the first unit to collaborate with Heliogen.

The sunshine is free, making full use of it is still an eternal dream? Expect heavy industry to see the truth, and quickly switch to save the increasingly degraded climate.

Source : GenK