The “sun” will be used to to determine the optimal setup needed to to power a reaction that produces hydrogen fuel. “We’d need billions of tonnes of hydrogen if we wanted to drive [airplanes] and cars on CO2-free fuel,” Hoffschmidt explained. “Climate change is speeding up so we need to speed up innovation.”
In the future, the facility may be used to test the durability of space travel parts when blasted by solar radiation, so not only could Synlight help us deal with our energy crisis here on Earth, it could help us explore worlds far beyond our own, too.
via The world’s largest ‘Artificial Sun’ has just been switched on in Germany – ScienceAlert.