GEC NEWS WIREHeliogen, a solar energy company, has announced it has been able to concentrate solar energy to exceed temperatures greater than 1,000 degrees Celsius. At that temperature, Heliogen can replace the use of fossil fuels in critical industrial processes, including the production of cement, steel, and petrochemicals, dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions from these activities. This scientific achievement was accomplished at Heliogen’s commercial facility in Lancaster, California.
Heliogen’s stated mission is to create the world’s first technology that can commercially replace fossil fuels with carbon-free, ultra-high temperature heat from the sun and to transform sunlight into fuels at scale, taking a major step towards solving climate change. Its heat technology represents a key technical breakthrough for concentrated solar thermal.
Previous commercial concentrating solar thermal systems have been designed to reach temperatures of up to only 565 degrees Celsius, useful for power generation, but insufficient for many industrial processes. Many of these processes require much higher temperatures, which have traditionally been reached through the burning of fossil fuels.
The potential impact of Heliogen’s patented technology is massive. With temperatures from its concentrating solar thermal technology exceeding 1,000 degrees Celsius, Heliogen will be able to replace the fuel that generates greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes with solar energy for the first time. For instance, cement production, one of the industrial processes well suited to Heliogen’s technology, alone accounts for more than 7 percent of global CO2 emissions.
In addition to industrial process heat, Heliogen’s technology roadmap calls for temperatures up to 1,500 degrees Celsius. At that temperature, Heliogen can perform CO2-splitting and water-splitting to make 100 percent fossil-free fuels such as hydrogen or syngas.
Heliogen is able to achieve these breakthrough temperatures as a result of its technology that uniquely uses advanced computer vision software to hyper-accurately align a large array of mirrors to reflect sunlight to a single target. The firm’s founder and chief executive officer is Bill Gross, a lifelong entrepreneur and founder of Idealab. The Heliogen team includes scientists and engineers from Caltech, MIT, and other institutions and is based in Pasadena, California.
Other investors in Heliogen include venture capital firm Neotribe and Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, the Los Angeles-based investor and entrepreneur, through his investment firm, Nant Capital, a division of NantWorks. Neotribe’s founder and managing director, Swaroop Kittu Kolluri, and Dr Soon-Shiong have joined Heliogen’s board of directors.
Heliogen is working with Parsons Corporation, a global leader in the defence, intelligence, and critical infrastructure markets. Parsons, Heliogen’s strategic partner, has more than a decade of experience with the development and implementation of innovative solar thermal projects. “As a company, we deliver sustainable solutions to our customers and we look forward to bringing Heliogen’s breakthrough technology to scale with our industry partners,” says Michael Chung, Vice President of Energy Solutions, Parsons Corporation.
“The world has a limited window to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” says Bill Gross, CEO and Founder, Heliogen, and Founder and Chairman, Idealab. “We’ve made great strides in deploying clean energy in our electricity system. But electricity accounts for less than a quarter of global energy demand. Heliogen represents a technological leap forward in addressing the other 75 percent of energy demand: the use of fossil fuels for industrial processes and transportation. With low-cost, ultra-high temperature process heat, we have an opportunity to make meaningful contributions to solving the climate crisis.”
“Today, industrial processes like those used to make cement, steel, and other materials are responsible for more than a fifth of all emissions,” says Bill Gates. “These materials are everywhere in our lives but we don’t have any proven breakthroughs that will give us affordable, zero-carbon versions of them. If we’re going to get to zero-carbon emissions overall, we have a lot of inventing to do. I’m pleased to have been an early backer of Bill Gross’s novel solar concentration technology. Its capacity to achieve the high temperatures required for these processes is a promising development in the quest to one day replace fossil fuel.”
“For the sake of our future generations we must address the existential danger of climate change with an extreme sense of urgency,” says Dr Patrick Soon-Shiong, Chairman and CEO of NantWorks, and member of the board of directors, Heliogen. “I am committed to using my resources to invest in innovative technologies that harness the power of nature and the sun. By significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions and generating a pure source of energy, Heliogen’s brilliant technology will help us achieve this mission and also meaningfully improve the world we leave our children.”
“It’s not hard to improve upon another’s idea, but it takes a truly innovative mind and superhuman effort to create something entirely new and groundbreaking,” says Swaroop Kittu Kolluri, Founder of Silicon Valley VC firm Neotribe Ventures, and member of the board of directors, Heliogen. “We enthusiastically support entrepreneurs in their quest to disrupt the status quo by solving complex and deeply impactful problems that result in lasting change. Bill Gross and the team at Heliogen have done exactly that, solve a complete problem in a bold new way that will make the world a better place.”
Key takeaways
- Heliogen can replace the use of fossil fuels in critical industrial processes, including the production of cement, steel, and petrochemicals, dramatically reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
- Previous commercial concentrating solar thermal systems have been designed to reach temperatures of up to only 565 degrees Celsius, insufficient for many industrial processes.
- Heliogen’s technology roadmap calls for temperatures up to 1,500 degrees Celsius. At that temperature, Heliogen can perform CO2-splitting and water-splitting to make 100 percent fossil-free fuels such as hydrogen or syngas.
- “With low-cost, ultra-high temperature process heat, we have an opportunity to make meaningful contributions to solving the climate crisis,” says Bill Gates.
