Eye of Sauron’: The Dazzling Solar Tower In The Israeli Desert

By: Seat Earnings

This is the great solar tower of Ashalim, one of the tallest structures in Israel and, until recently, the tallest solar power plant in the world.

Great solar tower of Ashalim

The tower generates enough electricity to power tens of thousands of homes.This is the great solar tower of Ashalim, one of the tallest structures in Israel and, until recently, the tallest solar power plant in the world.

You shouldn’t look directly at the solar tower near Ashalim, a village in Israel. But that’s easier said than done. Drive through the crags and craters of the Negev Desert, and it’s difficult to miss: a piercing light, mounted on an austere gray tower, more than 800 feet high. It’s visible even from space.

The tower generates power using the sun’s rays, which hit a sea of more than 50,000 mirrors positioned around the structure and reflect the light beams upward, concentrating them on a giant water boiler inside the tower’s turret. The resulting steam is piped to turbines that generate enough electricity to power tens of thousands of homes.

To backers, the tower is an impressive feat of engineering, a testament to Israeli solar innovation. To critics, it is an expensive folly, dependent on technology that had become outmoded by the time it was operational.

For the 750 or so residents of Ashalim, after which the power plant is named, the tower is also something far more tangible. It is the ever-present backdrop to their lives, a source of frustration, occasional fondness and even pride, eliciting both ire and awe.

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