Concentrated Solar Power
Main article: Concentrated solar powerAlso known as Solar thermal, this technology uses various types of mirrors to concentrate sunlight and produce heat. This heat is used to generate electricity in a standard Rankine cycle turbine. Like most thermoelectric power generation, this consumes water. This can be a problem, as solar powerplants are most commonly located in a desert environment due to the need for sunlight and large amounts of land. Many concentrated solar systems also use exotic fluids to absorb and collect heat while remaining at low pressure. These fluids could be dangerous if spilled.
Read more about this topic: Environmental Impact Of Electricity Generation
Famous quotes containing the words concentrated, solar and/or power:
“Along the iron veins that traverse the frame of our country, beat and flow the fiery pulses of its exertion, hotter and faster every hour. All vitality is concentrated through those throbbing arteries into the central cities; the country is passed over like a green sea by narrow bridges, and we are thrown back in continually closer crowds on the city gates.”
—John Ruskin (1819–1900)
“Senta: These boats, sir, what are they for?
Hamar: They are solar boats for Pharaoh to use after his death. They’re the means by which Pharaoh will journey across the skies with the sun, with the god Horus. Each day they will sail from east to west, and each night Pharaoh will return to the east by the river which runs underneath the earth.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“He had come down, He said, to clean the earth
Of the dirtiness of war.
Now tell of why His power failed Him there?
His power did not fail. It was that, simply,
He found how much the people wanted war.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)