CSIRO Claims Falling Particle Concentrated Solar Power Can Lead To A Net Zero Economy

A few days ago, we reported on a new plan by researchers at MIT that would create clean hydrogen from water using only sunlight. Not just ordinary sunlight, but the power of the sun focused on a single point by an array of mirrors, a technology known as concentrated solar power, or CSP.

It really is just a scaled-up version on that experiment you learned at summer camp where you used a magnifying glass to focus sunlight until it was hot enough to burn your initials onto a piece of wood. The difference between a CSP facility and a conventional solar farm is the captured heat can power conventional supercritical steam turbines for up to 15 hours, whereas the solar farm only produces electricity while the sun is shining.

Now Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research…