Taken flying over the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project near Tonopah, Nevada. Photo taken on my Nikon D7000.
10,374 huge tracking mirrors focus sunlight onto the central ~200 meter solar power tower. Molten salt stores and transfers heat which is used to create steam and then generate electricity.
The salt also stores heat well, allowing the plant to generate power up to 10 hours after sunlight is unavailable. No backup power systems are needed, which means no fossil fuels and no emissions.
Read more at the SolarReserve website.
Original plans for this facility included a weekly supply of 4 truckloads of sunscreen for the mirrors. The design was later switched to a mirror variety that does not sunburn.
If you broke all these mirrors, you'd have 72,618 years of bad luck.
Thanks for dropping by!
