Concentrated solar power has a bright future

Great, great news for the energy crisis. Lets hope the good news keeps on coming.

The tubes are not filled with water but instead a synthetic oil that is pumped through water tanks turning the water into steam that turns the turbines. They have these in the Majave desert, built back in the 80s.

hoorah! we just need it practical and able to be applied now

ha... you made a pun - don't do it again. :)

The problem with renewable energy that puts so many off, is the repayment period, when it comes to initial costing, the prices are high........it can take meny years for it to bcome cost effective. But when it does.......the benefits are massive.

New and developing technologies in the renewable energy sector are so important not only for our environment but considering the issues in the economy.......a sustainable means of producing energy is needed.

According to the Geological phase of countries, many nation does not need to have Solar concentrated power due to the changes of the environment.

Seasonal strategies focused mainly to what companies development....

Specifically, here in the Philippines, thee are two season... Rainy and Sunny days.... but in other countries, there are four season.... Autumn, Winter, Spring and Sunny Days....

concern about the repayment period is often and simply a selfish concern. Look around at how many overblown multi-million dollar homes have nothing sustainable outside of a few energy star appliances. This old notion that a payback period is important has only to do with a persons personal wealth and the priceless payback the Earth would provide if they could get their heads around something greater than their own wallet. For those who flat out cannot afford solar energy I don't think they are thinking about the payback period. They are more likely thinking about staying warm and eating.

Yes, solar requires a lot up front, but it does become cost effective.

When you compare the repayment period of a solar project such as this with the repayment period of a nuclear power plant, there is, well, no comparison.

Nuclear plants aren't cost effective and ground isn't even broken without billions in subsidies.Future generations will continue to pay for the costs of cleaning up and storing nuclear waste, virtually forever.

We have the technology to do what is right, what we need is the vision and political will power to make it happen. The corporate influence is so strong, that this will not be an easy task, but "a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Let's take the first step together as a nation, and say yes to alternative energies such as concentrated solar power and no to nuclear power.

I am happy to see some innovative capitalists at the helm.

these are the kinds of things corporate taxes should subsidize/support. And if a corporation doesn't want to improve conditions in the U.S. they should fuck off somewhere else.

@Jubal, thanks for the feedback... "Plusaf, perhaps government regulation would be in order and say cap the amount of these compensation packages to a certain percentage higher than what the lowest earning individual in the corporation makes. Another idea I thought of is if we are going to treat America as a giant corporate conglomerate, I want my shares; and pronto. All Americans citizens should be stockholders in America Inc."

the problem with caps on earnings is that if there's REALLY someone great running the company and the lowest paid person is a janitor making $15,000 a year, one of two things tend to happen..... the janitor gets outsourced, so they're no longer "the lowest paid employee" and thus out of the spreadsheet or off the distribution curve, or the superstar finds some other way to get the money he/she feels they're worth.

it's like wage and price controls. they just screw up the market until they're rescinded, and then the coiled up spring pops back with a BIG jump to where things would have been without the constraint. i lived through wage and price controls not too long after i got out of college. employers, of course, loved it, as it kept costs down.

as for "owning a share of america," you could say you already do: you own yourself to some degree, and the fruits of your labors, and any property and so on. you also have paid taxes, sort of like buying your share of highways, police protection and a military that keeps the bad guys from walking in and taking it all away from all of us [which COULD happen if there were NO defense forces... ya cain't really deny THAT, can you? :)]


i don't know. but my gut feel is that the root of the problem is in basic education. our society has made it acceptable to screw other people on the way up the ladder. a friend of mine dropped out of a grad course at Stanford after the "professor" basically told the students that that was the only way to be successful in Silicon Valley [i'm REALLY NOT kidding....].

management thinks that internal competition is better than teamwork and creates all kinds of institutionalized feedback mechanisms to reinforce that.

i worked 24 years at a company that ONCE WAS one of the most respected companies in the world. today, it's not even on the "top 100 companies to work for" lists. they blew away "profit sharing" and instituted employee ranking systems that virtually destroyed teamwork throughout the company.

how can anyone be a "team player" when, if you help someone else do a better job, they'll appear to outperform YOU and you'll be ranked lower, get a lower raise, or if you drop into the "bottom 5%" made famous by the Big Moron at GE, they could even fire you.

but they don't GET IT! they've convinced themselves that they're right and the top bigwigs only ask each other if they're "doing it right," so the answers are always "yes!"

i've known several consultants who now refuse to work with companies above a certain size, because of the attitude shift that happens to virtually all large companies.

however, we have seen some "big companies" implode from their own attitudes and stupid decisions... anything from Ken Enron Laid to GM, which couldn't see the handwriting on the gas pumps until they had to shutter several of their previously-most-profitable plants.

i tend to trust "what goes around comes around" over trying to mess with the system with more laws and limits.

let's try for ethics and morals as a basis, and try to get it taught in schools...

oops... public schools, taught by tenured teachers who can't be fired for anything less than pedophilia....

nope, that won't work either.

want to try to outlaw "tenure"? about as easy as outlawing unions.

keep throwing ideas around. it does help.
thanks, again!