<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Climate change has challenged our brightest scientists and engineers to create alternative sources of energy. For years, solar energy has been among the leading contenders for sustainable clean energy. This week in North Africa, we\u2019ve come one giant leap closer to realizing the potential of solar power. A factory in Morocco just turned on a massive solar power plant in the Sahara desert, beginning the first phase of a project to provide renewable energy to more than a million residents in the country. The plant, called Noor I, spans thousands of acres and is capable of generating up to 160 megawatts of power. But it\u2019s soon going to be even larger. Noor, which is Arabic for light, has two more phases, and once the ambitious project is completed in 2018, the network will cover 6,000 acres, an area larger than Morocco\u2019s capital city of Rabat. The solar plant will be capable of generating up to 580 megawatts of power, roughly the same wattage as a small nuclear reactor.\n\nNoor I is made up of some 500,000 arched mirrors, each about 40 feet off the ground. The mirrors reflect the sun\u2019s light into a pipeline that is filled with fluids. The solar heat brings the fluid\u2019s temperature up to nearly 750 degrees Fahrenheit. From there, the boiling fluid moves through the pipeline to a nearby water source that heats the water to steam, which spin turbines to create energy.\n\nMorocco, which gets about 3,000 hours of sunlight annually, seems like a perfect place for this project. And since it currently depends on imports for 97 percent of its energy consumption, the solar plant may be a tremendous step toward the country\u2019s energy independence."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/massive-solar-power-plant-noor-opens-morocco-sahara-desert>