Concentrated solar thermal: the technology that will save humanity
November 21st, 2008 by Jim JustJoseph Romm at Climate Progress reminds us that concentrated solar thermal power or “solar baseload”, as he likes to call it - is the technology that will save humanity.”
It is highly scalable, eventually able to achieve 50 to 100 gigawatts a year growth or more. And its ultimate trump card is storage. No batteries required, just a heat sink - and the round-trip efficiency is 90%.
Forget the oxymoronic “clean coal.” Concentrated solar thermal will be delivering reliable, low-cost power while “clean coal” will forever remain nothing more than a chimera.