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Green money finds home in green tech: forty million for solar thermal

A Palo Alto-based solar thermal company just made a big score: $40 million US for development of their plants. Ausra now is working on projects in Portugal, Australia and California.
Written by Harry Fuller, Contributor

A Palo Alto-based solar thermal company just made a big score: $40 million US for development of their plants. Ausra now is working on projects in Portugal, Australia and California. Their website shows how they use solar power, water and some elegant technology to generate electricity with no carbon emissions, no by-products.

They use oil and salts to store the heat to use when the sun is not shining directly on their solar collectors. Neither the oil nor the salt is altered by the process so it is constantly reused. Their plants do not depend on silicon collectors and are thus cheaper to build.

My favorite item on their website is in the above graphic: showing how a single large Arizona solar farm using Ausra tech could supply all the electricity America uses. You feeling sorry for the coal guys, yet?

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