The Power of the Sun and Salt | Breakthrough

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·Nov 11, 2024

When the plant is finished, 10,000 mirrors will focus the sun's rays onto the apex of a 600 ft tower filled with salt. So, we heat up our molten salt to 1,000° Fah, and then we're going to store that liquid and use it for power generation. Salt retains heat in a liquid form better than any other comp non-hazardous mineral. The molten salt will boil water into high-pressure steam that spins the blades of a turbine.

After this, the salt will be recycled and reheated again and again. This is different. I mean, this thing can make so much power it's beyond belief. You know, so can this plant save the world? Yes, it can do it. Give the opportunity, absolutely. It can do it.

Now that the plant's infrastructure is finished, they're tackling the final problem: heating up the salt. Great! Now, over the next four weeks, we've got to get hot salt into the system, and the hot salt will allow us to produce that superheated steam we need. We're just so close now, you know, and you can see the goal wide. It's a billion-dollar gamble.

So, as they prepare to turn the system on for the first time, they wonder, will it pay off?

Michael Seibel: How do you decide what to build next?

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