World's most efficient solar dish

A team led by Massachusetts Institute of Technology students last week successfully tested a prototype of what it says may be the "most cost-efficient solar-power system in the world," revolutionizing global energy production.

The 12-feet-wide dish, made of a lightweight frame of thin aluminum tubing and mirror strips, concentrates sunlight by a factor of 1,000, according to the Cambridge, Mass., university. It can create heat intense enough to melt a bar of steel.

The dish is the latest in a slew of sun-centric projects with which MIT has been associated. Other notables include solar-powered homes (it's been working on those since 1939), a pilot solar cell plant in Lexington, Mass., and more recently, funding 30 five-year fellowships in solar energy with a $10 million grant.

Matt Ritter, Doug Wood, Spencer Ahrens (the team leader, who just received his master's in mechanical engineering from MIT), and Micah Sze began assembling the dish by mounting one of the mirror panels, measuring 10 inches by 12 feet, in place.

Other team members include Broad Institute engineer Eva Markiewicz and MIT materials science student Anna Bershteyn.