Mike
I live in socal and have seen those. They are amazing, like the windmills.
I saw a PBS-like program on them and the problems mentioned were degradation
due to need to clean all the constant dust and damage from sand storms.
Cleaning means down-time and loss of effectiveness. If they worked well,
we'd be covered in them in this desert. Also like solar cells and windmills,
the cost (money and fuel) to produce is enormous but as the cost of
electricity rises, they will eventually become more plausible. Originally it
probably had some huge government subsidy which no one else has been able to
get. If it takes government subsidies (someone else's money) to make these
work, I'm not for it.
Ron
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With computer control of mirror angles this should be much more viable
today.
Could not this be done on a large scale with the heat produced being used to
drive large steam turbines? The energy would be created at the right time,
when everyone in the SW has their air conditioner on..... What am I missing?
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