How concentrated solar power could fuel the future Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Learn skills from the world's top minds at Big Think Edge:

How concentrated solar power could fuel the future Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Learn skills from the world's top minds at Big Think Edge: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- What if we could not only harness the power of the sun, but actually use it to run the entire planet? Concentrated solar power (CSP) has the potential to do just that — using arrays of revolving mirrors called heliostats, light is reflected into a massive receiver. Thanks to recent advancements in technology, the cost to replicate these Sunlight Refineries™ is dropping. Soon solar energy will be cleaner and cheaper than using fossil fuels, which could mean adoption on a global scale. Heliogen, a company founded by Bill Gross and backed by Bill Gates, wants to eliminate all uses of fossil fuels. Using cameras, AI, and machine learning, they are working to make these CSP systems smarter and much more efficient. This episode is from Hard Reset, a Freethink original series about rebuilding the world from scratch and reimagining everything from first principles. Catch more Hard Reset episodes on their channel: https://www.freethink.com/shows/hard-reset ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: NARRATOR: This might look like a death ray, but it's not. It's actually... One enormous, very accurate magnifying glass. NARRATOR: This magnifying glass has a technical name, a sunlight refinery. To use it, find somewhere really sunny, plop down a bunch of mirrors, bounce the sunlight into a single spot and you can melt just about anything. Okay, so it is kind of death ray-ish. Why do this? Because manufacturing steel or cement requires a lot of heat and making something super hot has historically meant burning dinosaurs. STEVE SCHELL: You look at the massive carbon footprint that is associated with these industrial applications and it can't be ignored. NARRATOR: Twenty percent of global carbon emissions to be precise. And because this technology is so good, it might just change the entire energy industry. And prevent World War III in the process. This is "Hard Reset," a series about rebuilding our world from scratch. Just east of Six Flags and north of LA is a place called Lancaster, which is very flat, very hot and a perfect place to test a takeover of the world's energy supply. [dramatic music] Yeah, that sounded more Bond villain-y than I thought it would. Anyway, these are called heliostats and the reason this solar refinery works so well is that under these mirrors and shot glasses are pretty simple motors that they can control remotely. And this allows the mirrors to change angles throughout the day, depending on where the sun is. How do they know where the sun is? Interns. No, AI, of course. BILL GROSS: You need to take each of thousands of mirrors and point them very, very precisely, accurate to about 1/10 or 1/20 of a degree. NARRATOR: That's Bill Gross, genius visionary and founder of over 150 companies. Also super nice guy. GROSS: Thank you, I really appreciate it. NARRATOR: At the top of the tower, high-resolution cameras monitor the position of the mirrors below. SCHELL: You can actually see the two at the top are the easiest to pick out 'cause they're on booms above the receiver. NARRATOR: So Heliogen gets all those mirrors to reflect sunlight into that big target at the top. SCHELL: So what we've got just above us is the solar receiver. So you can see that's what we saw from ground level. That's where that concentrated sunlight is focused when the field is operating. NARRATOR: The cameras know if the mirrors are bouncing into the sun because those cameras are assessing the quality of the sky's blue. Let's break that down with Steve, who has cool tattoos. SCHELL: This is my robot battle armor and what I have here is a jungle on an alien planet with robots tending the garden. NARRATOR: And is in charge of the technology stuff here. SCHELL: What these cameras see is the reflection of the sky close to the sun. Close to the sun, the sky appears very bright from the scattered sunlight coming through it and the further away from the sun you look, the darker or less bright that patch of sky appears to be. NARRATOR: So the cameras look at the color blue and the AI uses that information to assess the distance from the sun, deduce the orientation of the mirror and therefore, where the beam is going. SCHELL: So every few seconds, we get a measurement of where that beam is going and we can command the heliostat to make small corrections to optimize its tracking. In this industry, that is a complete game changer 'cause now we don't rely on the hardware to be so precise, we have software to make it precise. So it really changes everything about how that plant... To read the full transcript, please go to https://bigthink.com/videos/concentrated-solar-power

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 Jun 27, 2018

Sunday Morning Worship at 11AM on June 24th at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, Oregon. An Interfaith gathering for Immigrant Justice to pray and

 Jun 27, 2018

Sunday Morning Worship at 11AM on June 24th at the Federal Correctional Institution in Sheridan, Oregon. An Interfaith gathering for Immigrant Justice to pray and protest the internment of 123 refugees as part of President Trump's "Zero Tolerance" policy whereby parents were separated from their children before being jailed in facilities throughout the United States.  

"Wade in the Water" and other songs were combined with prayers, teaching moments, and readings from the Bible - Mark and the Romans.  

President Trump and Jeff Sessions, the Attorney General of the United States portray citizens objecting to the Zero Tolerance Policy  as "radicals" and "elites" who want open borders and don't care about crime. Such a characterization could not be further from the truth. This video shows Portlanders from all walks of life across a wide spectrum of religions and cultures who have come together, led by love, outside the gates of a federal prison housing 123 detainees to express their opinion that the zero tolerance policy is immoral and show support to those who have been detained.  

The folks at Freedom for Immigration (https://www.freedomforimmigrants.org/...) provide on their site detention maps and statistics for all immigrants in the system. Detention is  big business in America. 

Produced and filmed by Ruth Ann Barrett of Portland, Oregon as PDXdowntowner.

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• Saving the world from the apocalyptic impact of climate change should be a dream for many Silicon Valley titans concerned about legacy, says David Wallace-Wells, and yet few are dedicating

• Saving the world from the apocalyptic impact of climate change should be a dream for many Silicon Valley titans concerned about legacy, says David Wallace-Wells, and yet few are dedicating themselves to addressing the catastrophe. • Negative emissions technology funded by Bill Gates exists. It would cost $3 trillion per year to operate globally and would mean human industry could continue at current levels without global warming. • That figure sounds astronomical, however global subsidies to fossil fuel industries cost $5 trillion per year. David Wallace-Wells is the author of "The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming" (https://amzn.to/2Of5N3y). He is a national fellow at the New America foundation and a columnist and deputy editor at New York magazine. He was previously the deputy editor of The Paris Review. He lives in New York City. Read more at BigThink.com: Follow Big Think here: YouTube: http://goo.gl/CPTsV5 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BigThinkdotcom Twitter: https://twitter.com/bigthink

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Production of animal protein is producing vast amounts of climate-eating gases. But a new generation of companies are creating innovative food products that mimic meat and have much smaller

Production of animal protein is producing vast amounts of climate-eating gases. But a new generation of companies are creating innovative food products that mimic meat and have much smaller environmental impacts. Some of this mock meat is derived from plants with ingredients designed to replicate the taste and pleasure of chomping into a beef hamburger. Others are growing meat cells that come from a laboratory and not a cow. Bill Gates, Cargill, Tyson and other big name investors are dabbling in so-called clean meat. Emerging technologies are already offering people new food choices at restaurants and grocery stores. Will those options wean enough people from burgers and chicken wings to go mainstream? Will that transition help reduce carbon pollution that is destabilizing the climate? Production of animal protein is producing vast amounts of climate-eating gases. But a new generation of companies are creating innovative food products that mimic meat and have much smaller environmental impacts. Some of this mock meat is derived from plants with ingredients designed to replicate the taste and pleasure of chomping into a beef hamburger. Others are growing meat cells that come from a laboratory and not a cow. Bill Gates, Cargill, Tyson and other big name investors are dabbling in so-called clean meat. Emerging technologies are already offering people new food choices at restaurants and grocery stores. Will those options wean enough people from burgers and chicken wings to go mainstream? Will that transition help reduce carbon pollution that is destabilizing the climate? #letstalkclimate https://climateone.org/ https://climateone.org/events/christiana-figueres-conversation-mindfulness-and-climate Making tuna without a fish? 1:25 Why meat tastes like meat 10:25 New frontier beyond Farm To Table 14:28 The fate of the world? 23:35 Lightening Round! 24:28

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Clean, reliable #energy can reach everyone. How can we do it? #Minigrid Technology + Scalable Business Model = #Solvable. In this series, The Rockefeller Foundation shares more than 40 mini-films,

Clean, reliable #energy can reach everyone. How can we do it? #Minigrid Technology + Scalable Business Model = #Solvable. In this series, The Rockefeller Foundation shares more than 40 mini-films, and in a television-length documentary film featuring experts and innovators like Bill Gates, Princess Reema, and Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, who are tackling everything from childhood malnutrition to financial self-sufficiency for women to access to vaccines — a fascinating array of solvable challenges related to the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals for 2030. #SDGs #Philanthropy #Energy

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Despite the fact that women are half the world’s population, male leaders still outnumber female leaders by four to one. By harnessing the power of data, we can identify pathways for women to

Despite the fact that women are half the world’s population, male leaders still outnumber female leaders by four to one. By harnessing the power of data, we can identify pathways for women to pursue leadership, along with the positions they currently hold and the power they are able to exercise in those positions. We can then leverage that data to help change the institutions, systems and practices to put more women into leadership roles. Gwen Young is an international development specialist and advocate. She also has worked as a lawyer to develop exploitation- and sexual- and gender-based violence guidelines, and has trained women in human rights and economic empowerment. Gwen Young has devoted her career to humanitarian relief, international development, and human rights. As an attorney and public policy professional, Gwen has advocated for the role girls and women play in political, social, and economic development. She has trained women in advocacy, networking, management, and entrepreneurship in her roles with the International Rescue Committee, CARE, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. While working with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), Gwen developed guidelines to deal with sexual- and gender-based violence and exploitation. She has lived for over 10 years on the African continent, in a variety of conflict-ridden zones. Today, Gwen works to advance the role of women in government as the Director of the Wilson Center’s Global Women’s Leadership Initiative. The Initiative aims to ensure 50% representation of women in public-service leadership in governments across the globe by 2050. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx

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Bill Gates addresses the warming of the planet by CO2 emissions and resulting temperature increases and ecosystems collapsing. Do we really have to get down to near zero emissions? Yes. This is a

Bill Gates addresses the warming of the planet by CO2 emissions and resulting temperature increases and ecosystems collapsing. Do we really have to get down to near zero emissions? Yes. This is a presentation made at TED conference 2010.

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