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Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar breakthrough

poweRob

poweRob

USMC 1988-1996
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Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar 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.

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."​
 
Sounds like something that can be filed under ‘that’s nice, but very little scalability.” Take an example from the article - steel production. It’s not enough to have a source of energy that can produce the required heat under the right circumstances. It hast to be capable of producing it and maintaining constant temperature and it hast to do it all the time. Not to mention that the majority of plants operated by the nation’s largest steel producer are not located in areas optimal for solar energy.
 
"If we go to a cement company and say we'll give you green heat, no CO2, but we'll also save you money, then it becomes a no-brainer," said Gross.
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This is true, but at this point they cannot say that. When they can, the cement company will have a reason to be interested.

I hope it reaches that point someday.
 
I give Gates a lot of credit for using his money to find solutions to problems instead of capitalizing on them.
 
Artificial intelligence is not just going to revolutionize the energy sphere. It and quantum computing are going to change our lives way beyond what the PC, the Internet, and the smartphone have done:

Google just took a quantum leap in computer science. Using the company's state-of-the-art quantum computer, called Sycamore, Google has claimed "quantum supremacy" over the most powerful supercomputers in the world by solving a problem considered virtually impossible for normal machines.

The quantum computer completed the complex computation in 200 seconds. That same calculation would take even the most powerful supercomputers approximately 10,000 years to finish, the team of researchers, led by John Martinis, an experimental physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote in their study published Wednesday (Oct. 23) in the journal Nature.

Google's Quantum Computer Just Aced an 'Impossible' Test | Live Science
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One concern I have is that this technology not become a tool to enslave mankind, but that it would be used for his betterment and that of the planet.
 
poweRob said:
Secretive energy startup backed by Bill Gates achieves solar 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.

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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Can they put this in space and make a death ray though.

Edit: I mean obviously it would be possible with enough lift to orbit.
 
Ahlevah said:
Artificial intelligence is not just going to revolutionize the energy sphere. It and quantum computing are going to change our lives way beyond what the PC, the Internet, and the smartphone have done:



One concern I have is that this technology not become a tool to enslave mankind, but that it would be used for his betterment and that of the planet.
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I'm afraid we are already heading towards having no privacy at all. I can't even imagine at this point in time when I go out how many different cameras I appear on? Pretty much anything the government really wants to find out about you, they can.

Like you, I hope we mature enough to use AI wisely and for the benefit of earth and mankind.
 
The problem will be the same as before- how do you store the energy generated. The bottleneck isnt solar per se, but long term, efficient and reliable battery storage.
 
Moot said:
I give Gates a lot of credit for using his money to find solutions to problems instead of capitalizing on them.
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Jeebus man that’s what capitalism is all about! He’s not in it for charity.

As a tangent not in reply to you, I have worked in the photo maintenance department of semiconductor manufacturing for almost 20 years. Everything these need to accomplish this has existed before I got in to the field. It doesn’t require AI. The AI is just going to account for things like uneven cloud cover and small things that can just slightly deflect a beam. They could and should have already proofed this without AI, then model the efficiency gain with AI.

If we can get that temperature, transferring heat to process is a whole lot simpler of an engineering problem than getting the energy to begin with.
 
PoS said:
The problem will be the same as before- how do you store the energy generated. The bottleneck isnt solar per se, but long term, efficient and reliable battery storage.
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You don't. Efficiency is far more important than production. Gates' 100's of mirrors pointed at a single spot can make a plant more energy efficient just by working part of the time. That is where all these kooks lose sight of what is happening. It isn't an either/or. The gains are in integrating the new with the existing.
 
Aberration said:
Jeebus man that’s what capitalism is all about! He’s not in it for charity.

As a tangent not in reply to you, I have worked in the photo maintenance department of semiconductor manufacturing for almost 20 years. Everything these need to accomplish this has existed before I got in to the field. It doesn’t require AI. The AI is just going to account for things like uneven cloud cover and small things that can just slightly deflect a beam. They could and should have already proofed this without AI, then model the efficiency gain with AI.

If we can get that temperature, transferring heat to process is a whole lot simpler of an engineering problem than getting the energy to begin with.
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He wasn't always so charitable and he got called out for it. Then he started hanging out with Warren Buffet and he changed. I don't know about charity, but Gates uses his money for humanitarian projects...and I don't think he does it for the profits.

My husbands is an electrical engineer and used to work on the A-10 warthogs. It was his job to upgrade all the electrical stuff in the aircraft.
 
Aberration said:
Jeebus man that’s what capitalism is all about! He’s not in it for charity.

As a tangent not in reply to you, I have worked in the photo maintenance department of semiconductor manufacturing for almost 20 years. Everything these need to accomplish this has existed before I got in to the field. It doesn’t require AI. The AI is just going to account for things like uneven cloud cover and small things that can just slightly deflect a beam. They could and should have already proofed this without AI, then model the efficiency gain with AI.

If we can get that temperature, transferring heat to process is a whole lot simpler of an engineering problem than getting the energy to begin with.
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When Bill does a TED Talk that backs up this claim, then I might believe that he is in it at all...so far I see nothing new or even remotely possible.
 
Drawdown said:
You don't. Efficiency is far more important than production. Gates' 100's of mirrors pointed at a single spot can make a plant more energy efficient just by working part of the time. That is where all these kooks lose sight of what is happening. It isn't an either/or. The gains are in integrating the new with the existing.
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Why is it necessary to insult people? While it is true it does not have to be an either/or situation the economics change when you have to estimate the savings versus the capital costs. That is the reality for any capital investment made for profit enhancement.
 
washunut said:
Why is it necessary to insult people? While it is true it does not have to be an either/or situation the economics change when you have to estimate the savings versus the capital costs. That is the reality for any capital investment made for profit enhancement.
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Oh, I get it now...the real desire here is to get the profit.

Google, or YouTube fresnel lens along with rear projection TV. Nice, but dangerous hobby. I almost burned down my garage with one of those lenses. They should always be covered when not in use.

Using acres of Nevada land and lots of mirrors works, but not as well as the engineers say. The mirrors have to be dusted frequently and endangered species of birds flying in the danger zone get vaporized.
 
washunut said:
Why is it necessary to insult people? While it is true it does not have to be an either/or situation the economics change when you have to estimate the savings versus the capital costs. That is the reality for any capital investment made for profit enhancement.
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It is not confined to profits, nor is the decision making confined to costs while those may be common considerations. Necessity is the mother of invention and will become increasingly more so as kooky cities and states try to move to unreliable generation from low density sources.
 
UtahBill said:
When Bill does a TED Talk that backs up this claim, then I might believe that he is in it at all...so far I see nothing new or even remotely possible.
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I prefer action over words, but to each their own I suppose.

If you see nothing new or remotely possible you’re choosing to be ignorant. The end goal is not new, the means and methods are. It’s already been possible for decades to reflect and track beams.... so [emoji2369]


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Aberration said:
I prefer action over words, but to each their own I suppose.

If you see nothing new or remotely possible you’re choosing to be ignorant. The end goal is not new, the means and methods are. It’s already been possible for decades to reflect and track beams.... so [emoji2369]


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
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I am a Navy trained reactor operator. I have either operated or maintained since 1967 at Navy, commercial, or research reactors. My knowledge and experience level makes me a lot less ignorant than average. I have a lot of instrumentation and control experience as well as some metrology. BTW, Bill Gates was an early investor, not a current one. It is important to read between the lines when dealing with those looking for investment capital.

I could do some detailed surgery on Bill Gloss's sales pitch, but can't type very well right now. My vision issues are weird tonight. New meds must be causing it.
 
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Amazing how just talking about science makes people so knee-jerk dismissive and angry.
 
Drawdown said:
You don't. Efficiency is far more important than production. Gates' 100's of mirrors pointed at a single spot can make a plant more energy efficient just by working part of the time. That is where all these kooks lose sight of what is happening. It isn't an either/or. The gains are in integrating the new with the existing.
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Huh? Factories arent more efficient if they only work when there's sunlight.

poweRob said:
Amazing how just talking about science makes people so knee-jerk dismissive and angry.
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Im guessing people are cynical because there's a lot of hype and it ends up being vaporware.
 
PoS said:
Huh? Factories arent more efficient if they only work when there's sunlight.
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In a place where you have more sunny days than cloudy days then you cost-benefit the cost vs. the savings and use other methods on other days.
 
I
Ahlevah said:
Artificial intelligence is not just going to revolutionize the energy sphere. It and quantum computing are going to change our lives way beyond what the PC, the Internet, and the smartphone have done:



One concern I have is that this technology not become a tool to enslave mankind, but that it would be used for his betterment and that of the planet.
Click to expand...

But, but. Will it run my game?
 
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