Reply #5: Sounds like a LOT of exaggeration [View All]

[TO Kid]

To produce the amount of power claimed here would require some huge dishes. In North America, the energy from full sunlight at noon is ~1.3 kilowatts per square metre, meaning that a 100% efficient conversion would require that each of the six dishes would have to have a surface area of 19 square metres- that would mean a diameter of 2.5 metres each. Since the best thermal power generators are about 40% efficient that takes the diameter up to 6.2 metres. I sincerely doubt that any material would absorb anywhere near 100% of the solar energy and convert it to heat, any plan that involves dishes less than 10m in diameter would be suspect. The bottom line is that 1.3kw/m2 is the absolute upper limit for any solar power project.