Forever sunny
generating electricity from the sun at night? That is what the Solar ii power plant in the us is doing. It soaks up sun's heat during the day and releases it at night or over the course of several cloudy days. If Solar ii functions without any glitches during its three-year projected life, solar power could become far more dependable ( Business Week , June 17, '96).
Solar ii is a us $40 million refurbishment of Solar i , a 10 mw -power plant that operated from 1982 to 1988 in the Mojave desert, California. Solar ii uses heliostats, or sun-tracking mirrors to focus sunshine on the top of a central tower. There, the concentrated sunlight heats a mixture of sodium and potassium nitrate to 1,050