Why are electric utility companies using mirrors?

Electric utility companies are using mirrors to concentrate heat from the sun to produce environmentally friendly electricity for cities, especially in the southwestern United States. The southwestern United States is focus-ing on concentrating solar energy because it's one of the world's best areas for sun-light.

How do parabolic mirrors work?

(Supplied: Vast Solar) Parabolic mirrors, known as heliostats, track the Sun to ensure the beam of reflected light remains aimed at the receiver tower. The heat is first stored in liquid sodium metal at 565 degrees Celsius, then in molten salt at 550C, and finally as steam to drive a turbine.

Why is it so hard to build a perfect mirror?

Building a near perfect mirror is hard, so it's easier to convert the light into something that can be stored and then convert that back into light when you need it. +1. One remark: maybe you should make it more clear that the perfect mirror is not just a technical issue, rather that quantum tunneling is inherent to nature.

How do you store light as energy?

Re your next question storing light as light seems a pointless exercise. We don't store electricity as charge, we store it as chemical energy in a battery because that's easier, cheaper and more useful. If you want to store light put the energy in a battery then use the energy to power an LED.

How do you store electricity as a charge?

We don't store electricity as charge, we store it as chemical energy in a battery because that's easier, cheaper and more useful. If you want to store light put the energy in a battery then use the energy to power an LED. @raptortech97: we can store charge temporarily in a capacitor and we can store a magnetic field temporarily in an inductor.

How do solar power towers work?

Solar power towers have a host of mirror reflectors at the ground level, also known as heliostats. These heliostats run on a tracker system and concentrate sunlight throughout the day, reflecting it to a single point at the top of a tower that hosts the receiver.