BrightSource's novel solar thermal power concept for California heats up

There is still a tremendous bias to find "the" answer to the challenge of providing cleanly, affordable and secure energy that is also profitable to investors.  Our centralized, command-and-control way of extracting and delivering non-renewable energy blinds us to the fact that even there, different energy sources feed into it.  It will be no different in how we will harvest and deliver...

As the LA Times article describes, solar thermal electric generation schemes have actually been technically successful for some years and the 354 MW of parabolic trough systems built in the late 1980s are still running very well.  What's needed now for these technologies, collectively known as "CSP" for Concentrating Solar Power, to flourish is deployment that can foster learning-by-doing technology...

Thermal Storage will need to be addressed in order for this or any of the solar technologies become main steam. Parabolic Trough with heat transfer fluids and molten salt thermal storage is the clear leader in value and ability to contribute to system integration needs. The solar dish-stirling engine design is also claiming cost benefits for pure concentrating solar thermal. As of this writing, solar...