Reality Askew

This was an original idea I came up with around 2005.  I’ve since learned that several companies are actually doing something along these lines.

Solar energy machine – imagine a lot of tubes in a rectangular structure.  Then position thousands of small magnifying lenses over top of the tubes with the sun focused on the tubes through them.  The tubes would be filled with a liquid and the concentrated rays would create steam.  The steam would power a generator and then the liquid would be cooled and returned to the tubes.  This would effectively create clean energy with zero emissions.  A setup like this in the deserts of Arizona could be very effective.

I think that the possibilities around “green” energy are very fascinating and I find a lot of my ideas center around the ways we can limit our use of finite resources.

Follow-up:  Can a beam of light be focused twice? What I mean is can a beam of light that’s been passed through a magnifying glass be passed through another to enhance/amplify it somehow?