US: Heliogen, a new technology venture, says it has concentrated solar energy to exceed temperatures greater than 1000°C at its commercial plant in Lancaster, California. The company hopes to use the process to replace fossil fuels used in industrial cement, steel and petrochemical production processes. It is using computer vision software to align a large array of mirrors to reflect sunlight to a single target.
The company is based in Pasadena, California and is lead by Bill Gross, the founder of Idealab, a US technology startup incubator. Heliogen is supported by Parsons Corporation, a company that operates in defence, intelligence and critical infrastructure markets. Other backers include Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft.