"I don't know why everyone says that about my work, " replied the 77-year-old Mr. Graves, who famously decorated the Walt Disney headquarters with a frieze of seven dwarfs and topped an Alessi teakettle with a red bird that tweets an alert when the water boils.

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Heat from the sun boils water to run a steam turbine generator, which delivers power to the grid.

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The oil, which glows purplish when hot, flows to an adjacent power plant, where it boils water into steam that runs a turbine, and is pumped back to do it all over again.

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