December 11th, 2007
Proposed solar plant not worth its salt?
Parts of Africa have an abundance of solar energy. Remember that NOAA gobalmap we showed you? It clearly shows that some of that blazing sun reaches into South Africa.
So it seems like a plan to put a huge, world’s largest they claim, solar-powered generating plant in South Africa would be obvious. South Africa’s ESKOM wants to build this huge plant, but can’t find backers. They need 3/4 of a billion dollars, that’s pretty rich even for Silicon Valley’s wealthier VCs. Maybe they can borrow the money from Saudi Arabia? Or Venezuela?
The plant, if it’s ever built, would use not silicon wafers but parabolic mirrors and a melted-salt technology developed in Italy and the U.S. Here’s what the National Renewable Energy Lab says about this technology. It’s not yet being used in a major commercial generating plant.
A newsman since 1969, Harry Fuller has worked for CBS, ABC, CNBC Europe, CNET and was founding news director at TechTV. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
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