Solar energy cheaper than coal

Cool! This reminds me of the "sunflowers" from Larry Niven's Ringworld and his "known universe". They are giant plants, each of which has a large flower with a mirrored surface, which can focus sunlight either on a photosynthetic node, or on anything within view which is moving.

See: Sunflower

http://www.freewebs.com/knownspace/s.htm/#S

I wonder how fast this thing could cook a turkey?

Bit of nonsense, Korourke. The baseload problem has been solved for solar thermal, central receiver type plants with molten salt technology that stores the collected heat in large, well insulated tanks and that heat can be efficiently utilized at any time and supplemented by biofuel burners without a separate complete power system. These systems have been well tested by Sandia Labs and are about 99% efficient and very inexpensive relative to batteries and other forms of storage. Transmission is an infrastructure problem that needs to be solved by the federal government. If solar had a fraction of the huge subsidies lavished on nuclear, the "smart grid" would have been in place decades ago.

Helpful, but as the announcer stated, it is only cheaper because of the cheap land.

There are many issues that currently make solar energy cost prohibitive in many areas of the country, transmission being the main issue.

While it is good to see a project that is cost effective, this is just not always the case.

One of the main issues with solar is maintaining baseload power, ie. when the sun is not shining, how are homes powered? Until that issue is addressed, solar will remain a minor player in the overall energy portfolio.

Damn. Wish I had known to patent this idea back many years ago when I was frying ants.

WOOT! Finally affordable and now there will be no reason for the U.S. to stop using fossil fuels completely. For those of you familiar with anime technology, the idea of having a giant orbiting solar panel connected to Earth through a space elevator is now even closer than ever. Which means we can finally power the whole planet on solar energy, with excess.

The term "Alternative energy" is hilarious. Earth for most all terrestrial life has been powered by the sun since life arose. It is fossil fuel that is alternative energy.

Instead, solar, geothermal, tidal, wind should be called sustainable energy sources, and fossil fuels should be called non-sustainable energy sources.

XVX for life, R.A.S.H. 'til death.

one tower = 75 to 100 kilowatts. hot tamales!

Awesome stuff jan, not a eyesore either, wouldn't mind this in my backyard

Nuclear is not green. And we would definitely still have an energy crisis in that regard with nuclear waste, higher electric bills, and drilling for uranium which is CO2 intensive, kills fish and is toxic to landscapes and water. And especially in areas of drought it is NOT the answer. Just ask France. They have to shut down their reactors everytime the temperature reaches a certain degree. Not so good in a heatwave.

Build solar powered electric cars and 200 nuclear power plants.

Then we won't have an energy crisis for a very very very very long time.

We also won't have any greedy fossil fuel companies trying to intermittently milk us for all we're worth...

*sniper's bullet hits EmperorThan through window* *arsonist fire mysteriously burns down home simultaneously*

Beautiful. Now lets get that worldwide.

It's already being built.

Jan.....build a solar system and prove it's more economical.

The future is happening.

Great post Jan..

I'm surprised we never already moved to solar energy. Especially Texas, Arizona, or even New Mexico has moved to solar energy. It's a cheaper move and actually easier on our planet, so we can live longer.

Great post. Solar thermal is the energy of the future. It is not only inexpensive, but the thermal energy produced can be inexpensively stored in molten salts and rock beds to allow 24 hour operations. But in most places, the availability very closely follows the A/C power load so well, storage isn't much of an issue. In regions where the waste heat from power generation can be utilized, say for water distillation, the efficiency goes way up.