Actually I do but that is neither here nor there. I am not saying that this isn’t going to help or isn’t a worthy effort to keep exploring and working on. To the contrary I believe that we should be pursuing all sorts of different technologies. Right now the max output of any of the installed CSPs is 350 MW. That is a nice sized plant. It is in Mohave where there is lots of land and lots of sun.
A lot of the smaller plants help in areas where there is no other infrastructure. That’’s not a bad thing. I was addressing my remarks to the Canadian ( and Americans) who think that this is the be all and end all. There are problems that must be overcome with the technology but I believe that is doable.
There are many ongoing efforts to research and develop many new ideas. There is less effort to develop things such as coal ( since the current administration wants to close basically all coal down) and nuclear which also give us independence from the Middle East. Europe learned this long ago.
The real "missing ingredient" for solar thermal is a market size sufficient to justify the capital investment in a fully automated mass production facility for mirrors/concentrators. Once that point is reached, the price of the total system will drop significantly. The rest of the package is pretty much "off the shelf". A pot of thermal mass is NOT rocket science.