Startup Backed By Bill Gates Could Replace Fossil Fuels

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  Many companies today are opting for clean energy replacements in an effort to do their bit for the environment. Think cafes using paper straws instead of plastic straws, car sharing services rewarding people who carpool, and retail stores using paper bags in place of plastic bags. While it is within the reach for many sectors of the economy to green-up their company, there are some areas where change is difficult. 

  The factories making cement, steel, glass and petrochemicals are some of the dirtiest emitters of carbon and greenhouse gases (according to the EPA), and they happen to belong to an industry that is never idle. 

  The rapid gentrification of cities around the world equals a constant demand for building supplies, and we're guessing that with the rising population, this isn't about to change any time soon. So far, the recent wave of renewable energy hasn't reached the construction industry yet like it has with some cars, with the environmental cost worth less than the money saved on cheap (yet dirty) methods. 

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  The only way to make steel, glass and cement is with very high temperatures, and at present the only way to reach these temperatures is through burning fossil fuels or natural gases. But this is all about to change. 

  Heliogen has developed a breakthrough technology that uses mirrors and artificial intelligence (AI) to concentrate sunlight, harnessing solar energy of up to 1,000 degrees Celsius (1,832 degrees Fahrenheit) - which is twice the temperature reached by other solar companies in the past. This is not only hot enough for the construction industry's needs; it's also cheaper than the current methods they are using. 

  Heliogen's solar energy is carbon-negative and cheaper than using fossil fuels. This means companies that prioritize profits will opt for this option, regardless of how environmentally friendly it may be (which happens to be very). 

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  Heliogen's technology is based on concentrating solar power (CSP), where hundreds of mirrors are angled to reflect sunlight onto a tower, inside of which there is a steam turbine. The heat from the sunlight turns the water inside to steam, which runs the turbine and generates power. 

  CSP was first commercially sold in 2009, but quickly lost popularity in the shadow of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, which were cheaper and faster than CSP. What makes Heliogen noteworthy is that it uses AI to keep the mirrors precisely aligned, generating much more heat than CSP without AI would. 

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  The beauty in this technology is it's precision. The team behind Heliogen had to figure out a way to monitor the positions of the mirrors in real time. To calibrate the mirrors at once is ineffectual because of the conditions that can alter the mirrors: the wind changes them, the mirrors warp, and they slowly drift out of alignment. Each centimeter a mirror moves makes it more ineffective. 

  The Heliogen team solved this problem by placing four powerful cameras at the top of the tower. Rather than directly measuring the light coming off a mirror, the cameras focus on four points of equal distance around the mirror. The halo of light coming from the mirror is just as intense as the light in the center of the mirror when it is precisely aligned - and a camera couldn't point at the center anyway, because it would melt. 

  As all four cameras are watching all the mirrors constantly, the position of each mirror is being monitored and adjusted with micromovements that keep all mirrors perfectly focused on the same spot (which is 50 cm or 19.6 inches in diameter). The resulting effect of all the mirrors being pointed to one position is the generation of a lot of heat - and Heliogen believes that they can improve with time to reach 1,500 degrees Celsius. 

  This "closed loop" system monitors and adjusts itself, and uses an enormous amount of computing power. This level of power wasn't even available five years ago. 

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  Once the company are able to harness temperatures up to 1,500° C, they will be able to generate thermochemical liquid fuels. To put it simply, once a new material called ceria (CeO2) is heated to 1,500° C, it releases a pure stream of oxygen. Then it is cooled to 1,000° C and water and carbon dioxide are introduced. The ceria will want it's oxygen back now, so it transforms the water and carbon dioxide into hyrdogen, carbon monoxide and oxygen, then absorbs the oxygen. What's left over is a mixture of carbon monoxide and hyrdogen known as "syngas" (standing for synthesis gas). 

  So, you start with H2O + CO2 and you end up with a mix of H + CO. It just so happens that every hydrocarbon (fossil fuel) in the world is built around some combination of H and CO, which means that syngas can be refined into any fuel. If the CO2 used is drawn from the air via direct air capture (DAC), the resulting fuels will be carbon-neutral. 

  In short: CSP technology can greenly produce enough heat to create carbon-neutral fuel. This is a huge, huge improvement from the amount of greenhouse emissions produced by the use of fossil fuels today. 

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  There may be a few hiccups along the way until Heliogen gets recognized commercially for it's innovation, but we're sure that once their cheaper, more efficient and environmentally friendly CSP systems and carbon neutral fuels become more popular, humanity will never, ever look back. 

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