How Heat From the Sun Could Help Clean Up Steel and Cement
Serial entrepreneur Bill Gross has launched a new solar thermal venture, designed to cut climate emissions from industrial heat
By James Temple
Over the years, assorted startups and research groups have trumpeted the promise of solar thermal plants, which use a large array of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and produce electricity from the resulting heat. But the field has struggled to produce cheap power and gain a market foothold, even as the price of solar panels has plummeted.
Serial entrepreneur Bill Gross, however, remains a true believer in the technology. On Tuesday Gross, the chairman of the Idealab incubator and CEO of earlier solar thermal company eSolar, announced a venture that skips the electricity part and puts the heat to use directly in industrial processes.
Heliogen plans to achieve higher temperatures than previous commercial plants — enough heat to produce things like cement, steel, and hydrogen. The hope is that this solar heat could replace the fossil fuels usually required to drive the necessary reactions, reducing the greenhouse-gas emissions produced in the process.
