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German scientists test world's 'largest artificial sun'

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Hmmmmm... sounds pretty speculative at the moment.

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I forgot the place name but heading into Nevada going to Vegas In the desert is a facility like this with literally thousands of mirrors reflecting sunlight into a tower. Surreal looking complex.

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In four hours the system uses about as much electricity as a four-person household in a year.

Seriously? That's hardly an effective or efficient method of energy production now, is it?

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Hawkeye is describing SOLAR THERMAL generation. The project is amazing. A lot of the electricity is sent to California, and some stays in NV. An interesting side note is that it generates at about 3 cents per kWh or less, and that power is sold to the utility, which sells it to Casinos for about 15 cents per kWh. As solar is becoming cheaper, US utilities are balking at lowering their rates. Thank deity that Japan is not so screwed up and fighting about stuff like that. No. Japan forces its utilities to generate using fossil fuels, and charge people for the privilege. The worst of both worlds!

Regarding H2 generation, this is just not news. Creating H2 can be done many ways, but all methods require either high temperatures or a lot of electricity. Quite literally, if you are heating something from 30C to 600C, then you can save a lot of energy if you instead can start from 400C and go to 600C. That is not news. If you are using solar power, then you are just using sun power for heating. If that is cheap to do, then great. You can cook chili in your backyard using a cardboard box and aluminum foil. You don't even need a really sunny day if you use enough mirrors and foil. This is not rocket science. A girl scout can do it.

Also regarding H2 generation, Japan DOES have cheap electricity and it will have more in the future. All of those coal burning plants at night produce surplus electricity, and if Japan ever produces surplus solar and wind energy, that cheap electricity can either be wasted or used to produce H2. If nuclear power plants were used to produce the electricity AND add surplus heat, then you have what is called a "home run."

We have the technology TODAY to produce as much hydrogen as we need for cars, fertilizers, or whatever. New technologies are always great, but lack of technology is not what is holding back progress. WE are holding back progress.

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