Here\'s the catch: At 19MW capacity, this plant generates about 1.5 percent of the power of an average nuclear installation... and that\'s assuming the sun shines 365 days a year.
Not 50 percent as much...1.5% - even using the terrific molten salt storage system.
200 hectares is about a square mile footprint - for a 19MW plant. So if you can afford to cover 50 square miles with these plants, you can do as well as the avg nuke at 1200-1300MW.
For California\'s 52,000 MW needs, solar power would consume 2,736 square miles of footprint with this technology; plus the materials and labor cost. The entire city of Los Angeles is about 500 square miles.

So Todd...what about cost....and include ALL costs of solar versus nuclear. For one thing, getting permits for a nuclear plant, at least in the U.S. is next to impossible.
Three mile Island cleanup took 14 years at a cost of $1 Billion. I could build several of these plants which will never generate that kind of waste. Yes nuclear can produce more energy. So what. It cannot do it without risk to the environment.
I also think these are in their infancy. Building them will spur the competition to make them more efficient as time goes on.
I\'m not anti-nuke. Actually I agree with nuclear power, but to never invest in solar is dumb. We have 25,000 sq miles of the Mojave desert doing nothing. Might as well build a few to take the load off.

This is the beginning of something beautiful. People can always improve upon the design of something that works- we don\'t still drive Model T style cars anymore. The argument has been that the sun doesn\'t always shine...now it doesn\'t have to!

Solar suffers from low power density, but i would like to see something like that built on the roofs of a city.
If we could take the green fascists out of the equation, nuclear power would be safer, and a lot cheaper.

So Todd, what do you think the footprint of a nuclear power station is-per MW? Now I\'m not just talking about the power station itself-to be fair you *have* to include the land used to mine the uranium-& the ponds to store the run-off-& the land needed to store the nuclear waste. I think you\'ll find that, when you make a fair comparison, the two match up very nicely....with nuclear being much more expensive.
Also, this is just a starting point, as the efficiency improves, the MW per hectare will also improve. With nuclear power the maximum land-use efficiency has effectively been reached!

This plant is only part of the solution. Another part is getting rid of our aging buildings and appliances that are highly inefficient when compared to our current technologies and buildings. I live in an apartment that was built in the 70s, its in a pretty bad part of town and I use way more electricity than I should. The apartments need to be refurbed but I doubt it will ever happen due to the horrible management company in charge of them. My AC runs 24/7 in the summer (I am in texas... ). When the tempts get above 90 degrees the apartment actually gets warmer and somewhat uncomfortable even with the AC running. New power sources like this station are only part of the solution, old buildings with inefficient insulation/building techniques and appliances are the other part.

Absolutely not the only solution, but its part of it. Wasn\'t all that long ago that solar power night was the butt of a few jokes!

So to put it into context-a Coal-fired power station requires around 20 acres per MW of capacity, nuclear power requires around 10 acres per MW, & this facility requires 24 acres wer MW of capacity-so they are roughly comparable (though whether nuclear & coal includes the land use for fuel & waste disposal I\'m not sure). However, look at the picture-the mirrors are not so closely packed that you\'d necessarily have to give the land exclusively to power generation. Like Wind Turbines, you could have other things going on underneath & between the heliostats. As Voice has rightly pointed out, though, these power stations can easily be placed in areas that are no good for any other purpose-to further minimize their effective land-use footprint!

BTW, I don\'t like being labelled a Green Fascist just because I don\'t want a source of energy that creates waste that remains a threat over a multi-millenial time scale, which is extremely expensive (even with massive subsidies) & which also rely on a *finite* resource. I\'m all for keeping the power stations we already have, but we certainly shouldn\'t be building any more!

Aussie_Renewable--- No it hasn't. and you have to include the quarry for the sand to make the mirrors,
Adam Bradley--- Not even this solar plant can power a rainy week.
Why are they using a steam plant, sterling engines are for more efficient.