Science: Sun Power in the Pyrenees

A simple magnifying glass, focusing the sun's rays, can scorch a piece of wood or set a scrap of paper on fire. Solar radiation can also be concentrated on a much more awesome scale. It can burn a hole through thick steel plate, for example, or simulate the thermal shock of a nuclear blast. It can, that is, with the aid of a super reflector of the sort that has been set up by French scientists high in the Pyrenees. Ten years in the building, the world's largest solar furnace is a complex of...