As a kid, did you ever try using a magnifying glass to focus the sun’s rays and fry an unsuspecting ant? Don’t answer that. But on a small scale, that trick is a good example of how much energy there is available to be harvested from the heat of the sun. Outside of Seville, in southern Spain, a new power plant has been built using the same concept. It’s ridiculously simple—a field of gigantic mirrors direct sunlight toward the top of a tower, where the resulting heat powers a boiler (heats the water) to make steam. After that, it works just like every other power plant, the steam being used to make electricity. At the top of the tower, in the boiler room, the temperature can reach up to 400 degrees centigrade—and that’s with just one field of mirrors! Approximately 600 mirrors, each 120 square metres in size, currently produce 11MW of power, which is enough for 6000 homes. But that’s not all—ground has already been broken for another array of mirrors to produce, they hope, enough energy for the entire town of Seville, about 600,000 people. All without emitting one single molecule of any greenhouse gas. It won’t work everywhere, of course (think London or Vancouver, or northern Canada where it’s dark 24 hours a day for part of the winter). But there are plans to place some of these towers in the Sahara desert and then cable the power to northern Europe. Even if for some reason southern Spain isn’t sunny (like when it’s nighttime), energy can be stored at the plant in the form of steam. And what an incredible landmark it makes!