Solar Energy on the Horizon

Salon has posted an article about solar energy with the hyperbolic title "The Technology that Will Save Humanity." Despite the pretentions of its title, the article demonstrates how promising concentrating solar energy with mirrors may be as a means for providing an abundant and inexpensive source of electricity. Here's a quote:

CSP (concentrated solar power) makes use of the most abundant and free fuel there is, sunlight, and key countries have a vast resource. Solar thermal plants covering the equivalent of a 92-by-92-mile square grid in the Southwest could generate electricity for the entire United States. Mexico has an equally enormous solar resource. China, India, southern Europe, North Africa, the Middle East and Australia also have huge resources.

. . .

The technology has no obvious bottlenecks and uses mostly commodity materials -- steel, concrete and glass. The central component, a standard power system routinely used by the natural gas industry today, would create steam to turn a standard electric generator. Plants can be built rapidly -- in two to three years -- much faster than nuclear plants. It would be straightforward to build CSP systems at whatever rate industry and governments needed, ultimately 50 to 100 gigawatts a year growth or more.