Heliogen, a secretive energy startup backed by well-known people like Bill Gates, has created a way to use artificial intelligence and hundreds of mirrors to create a solar oven.
In doing so, Heliogen has harnessed the ability to generate heat above 1,000 degrees Celsius, which is about a quarter of the temperature on the surface of the sun.
The process of reflecting beams of sunlight onto a specific point in order to generate heat is known as concentrated solar power. This is the first time that humans have been able to get concentrated solar power hot enough to make it truly useful on an industrial scale.
Temperatures that hot could be used to make steel, glass and other necessary industrial products that have previously been impossible to create without the use of fossil fuels.
This breakthrough could drastically reduce global emissions, since creating these sorts of materials accounts for a large percentage of global CO2 emissions. For example, cement production accounts for 7% of worldwide emissions, according to CNN Business.
Heliogen also stated that these extreme temperatures could someday be used to create clean hydrogen, which could be turned into fuel for vehicles.
The full article from CNN Business is available here.