CNN10 2022-11-28
CNN 10
WIRE: Ten-second trivia:
What type of star is the sun?
Yellow Dwarf, Neutron Star, Red Dwarf, or Supernova?
According to NASA, the sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old Yellow Dwarf star, at the center of our solar system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Next up, we'll hear how Heliogen, a renewable energy company in California's Mojave Desert, is using concentrated sunlight to power more than just your home. This new tech startup wants to replace fossil fuels with concentrated sunlight. But unlike traditional green energy suppliers, this startup is able to store fuel to create power even when it's dark outside or cloudy.
But while the company has major financial backers, it's not a perfect solution. Stock prices are low and some question whether Heliogen can execute on a large scale.
We'll hear now from CNN business producer Jon Sarlin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JON SARLIN, CNN BUSINESS PRODUCER (voice-over): In California's Mojave Desert, renewable energy company Heliogen is working to harness concentrated sunlight for more than just powering your home. Using artificial intelligence, these mirrors can produce the extremely high temperatures needed to make things like concrete, steel and green hydrogen.
So behind you are these mirrors reflecting light. Tell me what they're -- what are they doing?
BILL GROSS, FOUNDER AND CEO, HELIOGEN: We're taking a field of mirrors. Each one of them being moved precisely by computer algorithms to reflect the sunlight to a single spot up on the tower behind us. At that single spot, we're achieving temperatures that are almost a third the temperature of the surface of the sun.
SARLIN: What do you turn what these mirrors are projecting into?
GROSS: The end result is we get very high temperatures so we can make steam for heavy industry, we can melt aluminum, we can melt steel, we can make concrete.
SARLIN: It's the algorithm that separates Heliogen from other concentrated solar power ventures. Heliogen doesn't need complex mirrors. Instead, they use cameras and computing power to align their mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a refinery tower. This process creates temperatures of about a thousand degrees Celsius and all of that heat is directed and stored in big thermos-like containers.
GROSS: So the energy continues after the sun goes down or even on cloudy days. We hold enough energy for a week of no sunshine, so that industry can run 24/7.
SARLIN: Concentrated solar power is a renewable energy resource that's been around for decades to generate power, but with mixed success. Its primary disadvantage has always been the hours of the day the sun isn't shining.
Heliogen's process solves this problem by storing its heat and making green fuel like hydrogen that can be used to fuel electric generating stations.
Okay. So you have this concentrated light source. You're using it for power, for industrial uses, and for what else?
GROSS: Because we have continuous electricity. We can make hydrogen. So hydrogen is a miracle substance. It's the most common element on earth.
SARLIN: Heliogen is using the thermal energy it creates to make hydrogen. Ironically, most hydrogen is made using fossil fuels, which has limited its production. What Heliogen is doing is making the process of creating a clean fuel clean.
GROSS: We already moved a molecule all over the earth in the form of oil and gas. Hydrogen is also a molecule which we can transport. So why is that so important? The United States can be an energy exporter, a renewable energy exporter.
SARLIN: So are we there yet?
GROSS: We're there. This is happening. Where we really need hydrogen is for trucks, for airplanes, for long distance transportation. All the places where hydrogen is made right now in a dirty way, we're going to make it in a clean way.
SARLIN: So the question though is if we can do it, we can do it in the lab. But can we do it on scale?
GROSS: We are doing it at scale. That's what you're looking at here.
SARLIN: At scale?
GROSS: At scale. This is a scale technology with a multi-acre field gathering the sunlight from multiple acres, concentrating it, and using that high temperature energy to split water and make hydrogen.
SARLIN: The company has major backers like Bill Gates. But still, Heliogen has faced obstacles.
Your stock price has faltered over the last year. Is the business at where you want it to be?
GROSS: Absolutely. In all businesses, your timing has to be perfect. So what's happened in the last year or so that makes the timing perfect? Well, fossil fuel prices have tripled. So all of a sudden, you can go to business and say, I'm going to install a system for you that takes away the volatility, you'll have control over your own energy production and I'm going to meet or beat your price and with zero emissions.
The sun is a resource that no one owns. It gives us ten thousand times more energy than the whole humanity needs and it's available for everybody. So the innovation can happen everywhere.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Today's story getting a 10 out of 10, a baby, a fur baby, and a big fur baby it is, at a British zoo. His name is Wilfred, in honor of World War One era poet Wilfred Owen.
Giraffes are the tallest animals on the planet. So at birth, they're already taller than most humans, about six feet tall. Wilfred was born November 11th at the Whipsnade Zoo in the United Kingdom.
Baby giraffes are born with horns too as you can see. And like human fingerprints, no two giraffes have the same pattern on their coats. Their tongues are long enough to pick their own noses. Wilfred's tongue will get to be 17 to 20 inches long when he's all grown up and his heart will weigh about 25 pounds.
Hearts out and shout out to all of you. Our first of the week is going to Harry B. Thompson Middle School in Syosset, New York.
Wishing you and everyone watching around the world some motivation this Monday. You are smart. You are strong. You are more powerful than you know.
Good to be back. I'm Coy. This is CNN 10.
END
CNN 10
WIRE: Ten-second trivia:
What type of star is the sun?
Yellow Dwarf, Neutron Star, Red Dwarf, or Supernova?
According to NASA, the sun is a 4.5 billion-year-old Yellow Dwarf star, at the center of our solar system.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
WIRE: Next up, we'll hear how Heliogen, a renewable energy company in California's Mojave Desert, is using concentrated sunlight to power more than just your home. This new tech startup wants to replace fossil fuels with concentrated sunlight. But unlike traditional green energy suppliers, this startup is able to store fuel to create power even when it's dark outside or cloudy.
But while the company has major financial backers, it's not a perfect solution. Stock prices are low and some question whether Heliogen can execute on a large scale.
We'll hear now from CNN business producer Jon Sarlin.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
JON SARLIN, CNN BUSINESS PRODUCER (voice-over): In California's Mojave Desert, renewable energy company Heliogen is working to harness concentrated sunlight for more than just powering your home. Using artificial intelligence, these mirrors can produce the extremely high temperatures needed to make things like concrete, steel and green hydrogen.
So behind you are these mirrors reflecting light. Tell me what they're -- what are they doing?
BILL GROSS, FOUNDER AND CEO, HELIOGEN: We're taking a field of mirrors. Each one of them being moved precisely by computer algorithms to reflect the sunlight to a single spot up on the tower behind us. At that single spot, we're achieving temperatures that are almost a third the temperature of the surface of the sun.
SARLIN: What do you turn what these mirrors are projecting into?
GROSS: The end result is we get very high temperatures so we can make steam for heavy industry, we can melt aluminum, we can melt steel, we can make concrete.
SARLIN: It's the algorithm that separates Heliogen from other concentrated solar power ventures. Heliogen doesn't need complex mirrors. Instead, they use cameras and computing power to align their mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a refinery tower. This process creates temperatures of about a thousand degrees Celsius and all of that heat is directed and stored in big thermos-like containers.
GROSS: So the energy continues after the sun goes down or even on cloudy days. We hold enough energy for a week of no sunshine, so that industry can run 24/7.
SARLIN: Concentrated solar power is a renewable energy resource that's been around for decades to generate power, but with mixed success. Its primary disadvantage has always been the hours of the day the sun isn't shining.
Heliogen's process solves this problem by storing its heat and making green fuel like hydrogen that can be used to fuel electric generating stations.
Okay. So you have this concentrated light source. You're using it for power, for industrial uses, and for what else?
GROSS: Because we have continuous electricity. We can make hydrogen. So hydrogen is a miracle substance. It's the most common element on earth.
SARLIN: Heliogen is using the thermal energy it creates to make hydrogen. Ironically, most hydrogen is made using fossil fuels, which has limited its production. What Heliogen is doing is making the process of creating a clean fuel clean.
GROSS: We already moved a molecule all over the earth in the form of oil and gas. Hydrogen is also a molecule which we can transport. So why is that so important? The United States can be an energy exporter, a renewable energy exporter.
SARLIN: So are we there yet?
GROSS: We're there. This is happening. Where we really need hydrogen is for trucks, for airplanes, for long distance transportation. All the places where hydrogen is made right now in a dirty way, we're going to make it in a clean way.
SARLIN: So the question though is if we can do it, we can do it in the lab. But can we do it on scale?
GROSS: We are doing it at scale. That's what you're looking at here.
SARLIN: At scale?
GROSS: At scale. This is a scale technology with a multi-acre field gathering the sunlight from multiple acres, concentrating it, and using that high temperature energy to split water and make hydrogen.
SARLIN: The company has major backers like Bill Gates. But still, Heliogen has faced obstacles.
Your stock price has faltered over the last year. Is the business at where you want it to be?
GROSS: Absolutely. In all businesses, your timing has to be perfect. So what's happened in the last year or so that makes the timing perfect? Well, fossil fuel prices have tripled. So all of a sudden, you can go to business and say, I'm going to install a system for you that takes away the volatility, you'll have control over your own energy production and I'm going to meet or beat your price and with zero emissions.
The sun is a resource that no one owns. It gives us ten thousand times more energy than the whole humanity needs and it's available for everybody. So the innovation can happen everywhere.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WIRE: Today's story getting a 10 out of 10, a baby, a fur baby, and a big fur baby it is, at a British zoo. His name is Wilfred, in honor of World War One era poet Wilfred Owen.
Giraffes are the tallest animals on the planet. So at birth, they're already taller than most humans, about six feet tall. Wilfred was born November 11th at the Whipsnade Zoo in the United Kingdom.
Baby giraffes are born with horns too as you can see. And like human fingerprints, no two giraffes have the same pattern on their coats. Their tongues are long enough to pick their own noses. Wilfred's tongue will get to be 17 to 20 inches long when he's all grown up and his heart will weigh about 25 pounds.
Hearts out and shout out to all of you. Our first of the week is going to Harry B. Thompson Middle School in Syosset, New York.
Wishing you and everyone watching around the world some motivation this Monday. You are smart. You are strong. You are more powerful than you know.
Good to be back. I'm Coy. This is CNN 10.
END