Solar Thermal Power: Renewable Oasis or Energy Mirage?

Good Article
Excellent article discussing the concentrating solar power. One extra thing that I would like to see would be a more indepth look at the policies in countries that is affecting the implementation of these solar generating plants. For example, the fact that the US rejected a bill to continue subsidies for solar plants was mentioned in passing, it would be nice to have more detail on this point.

Interesting..
A very interesting article! I agree that CSP plants or solar thermal power plants are an interesting option to secure the energy supply in the future. Anyway beside the infrastructure problem to transmit the electricity from the desert to the customer mentioned by you there are other challenges to be solved yet, as

• As the CSP plants work basically like conventional plants where energy is produced by running a turbine with steam, they consume a huge amount of water, what is rare especially in the Sahara desert and even in southern Spain.
• No matter what technique is used (parabolic through, fresnell or solar tower) the mirrors needed to concentrate the direct radiation on the receiver element have to be held clean from dust or sand. Again a challenge in regions where water to wash the mirrors is rare.
• There is a political stability risk in the countries mentioned that has to be considered, especially because the plants are very vulnerable to attacks by terrorist. ( you do not need very sophisticated equipment to destroy a mirror or cut transmission line)

By the way, the “CSP plants” planned in Morocco and Algeria are, as far as I know, combined gas-CSP plants where the CSP part is more or less an additional, but not the major source of energy.

Regards

Daniel