Daily Archives: May 3, 2007

The Future is Orange

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I don’t know if you’ve already heard about it, but the first commercial solar energy plant, (located near Seville, Spain) was inaugurated a while ago (30th March). It is an 11 Megawatt plant, called PS10 and:

solar tower…the project produces electricity with 624 large movable mirrors called heliostats.

Each of the mirrors has a surface measuring 120 square meters (1,290 square feet) that concentrates the Sun’s rays to the top of a 115 meter (377 foot) high tower where a solar receiver and a steam turbine are located. The turbine drives a generator, producing electricity.

I got that quote from an excellent article here. You can read a lot more there about some of the future plans of the EU for solar power there. Go directly to the website of the company that built it, Solucar, for more information and images of the plant.

solar mirrors

The 625 mirrors with the central tower, all glowing from the reflected sunlight, is quite […] Click to continue reading this post →

Corot Scores!

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corot's planetSo the planet hunter Corot has found its first extra-solar planet. It is a bit bigger than Jupiter, and orbiting awfully close to its sun-like star. Artist’s impression, from ESA, to the right. Click for larger.

From a BBC article by Rebecca Morelle:

The new body is called Corot-exo-1b and can be found 1,500 light-years away in the constellation of Monoceros.

also:

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