with 100 million to play with, someone sure doesn't doubt they might have something...
Solar works great on a small scale but if they can economically produce electricty on a large scale it's good news for the southwest.
We'll know soon enough, if we see the envirowhacks start protesting it. They just love "alternative energy sources", at least until someone announces a way to actually make them feasible. Then, they suddenly discover all kinds of "problems" with them.
Wind power was just wonderful to the eco-nuts, until people announced they were actually going to build windmills. Now, all we hear from them is how windmills cost too much, kill too many birds, "just won't work!" and will spoil Ted Kennedy's view when he's out on his yacht.
I wonder what the excuse for large scale solar cell production will be? I'm guessing whining about the "impacts" from mining the copper and other materials, "pollution" and greenhouse gas emissions and maybe even water use from the manufacturing process, and of course the usual hard-headed liberal "pragmatism" that is applied to missile defense and racila profiling ("It just doesn't work!").
Eco-whacks and other liberals don't want "alternative energy" - they want "no energy for you, and all for me." These people won't be happy until we're all sitting in the dark, freezing or sweating as the season dictates, tending our tiny little subsistence plots of soybeans, while they sit on their redwood decks with chilled wine and brie, congratulating themselves for how much they "care."
Someone with money to burn is providing the financing. There will be no payoff from these efforts for decades. And wait until the Greenies realize that Mining (gasp) will be needed to provide the raw materials.