Treehugger-- Google gets into Solar Thermal in a Big way.
Google’s at it again. The waves they’re making here aren’t the gadget/web service type though; Google’s using it’s monetary muscle to push the boundaries of solar thermal tech in an effort to lower their carbon footprint as well as significantly cut their energy costs, which they claim will be reduced by as much as sixty percent.
Solar Thermal power plants differ from more traditional Solar Panel/Potovoltaic energy installations. Rather than convert the sun’s energy directly into direct current, Solar Thermal power plants use highly reflective surfaces to harness the sun’s energy in order to run electricity-making turbines which then connect to the larger power grid. It’s not a cheap set-up when you start off but while solar panels need to be replaced every couple of decades or so, the apparatuses that create electricity are much more hardy. Let us know what you think.
