Kirsten Dirksen: Beyond Photovoltaics: Rebirth of the Other Solar Power: "By the middle of this century we may be getting a quarter of our energy from concentrating solar power, according to a new study by Greenpeace and solar industry groups, but most of us have never even heard of this low tech cousin to photovoltaics.
Two years ago, neither had I, and then I stumbled across a young inventor somewhere north of the Oregon-California border who is obsessed with perfecting the technology to roast coffee. When I pulled off Highway 5 for a video interview I'd set up with the co-founder of Solar Roast coffee-- I'd discovered him randomly online while looking for stories to shoot on our roadtrip home from Seattle--, I was unprepared for the hands-on lesson I was about to receive in solar concentrating technology.
Beautiful solar
David Hartkop is no engineer, in fact, he's trained in special effects, but the machines he'd mounted in his parents' backyard were simply smaller versions of the international power stations being touted as the next great step in solar. The technology is basic: instead of converting the sun's energy directly into electricity via solar cells, concentrating solar power (CSP) uses mirrors to concentrate sunlight to either heat something directly (for cooking or in Hartkop's case, for roasting coffee) or to heat water into steam to drive a..."
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