The United States generates much of its electricity
with coal-fired power plants, incurring substantial long term costs
and pollution. Those plants need to be closed to save
money and reduce environmental degradation.
An alternative method for generating electricity is needed,
at a scale that can replace coal plants.
Small-scale efforts are
not enough to close the coal plants,
because of insufficient output combined with
market incrementalism creating incentives for waste,
and also because of lack of time-spread supply
for base load needs.
What is needed is to build large-scale systems
that produce more power, introduce large amounts
of energy, and provide
time-spread (base load) supply.
The most cost-effective method
is large-scale solar energy electricity generation
using existing solar thermal technology.
This will close coal plants, save extensive long term costs
and create technologically suitable markets for solar energy
hardware manufacturers, reducing pressure to impose hardware on
less effective sectors (reducing distractive economic activity
rent-dissipation;
see
CSEM WP-176).
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Another method of generating solar electricity
will be to use concentrator photovoltaics (CPV).
That will produce more electricity at less cost
than current residential-style photovoltaics,
but not as much electricity as the large-scale
solar thermal electric plants described on this page.
The CPV systems will be installed on the roofs
of commercial buildings.
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“cost assessments for III-V
concentrator systems are very promising, even for
relatively low production capacities.”
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