Just as there are huge wind farms now providing backup power for conventional
electricity generation, central solar power towers will likely do the same in
the future.  The facilities generate electric power from sunlight by focusing
concentrated solar radiation on a tower mounted receiver.  Hundreds of
thousands of small sun-tracking mirrors reflect sunlight to the receiver.  In
some technologies, liquid salt is pumped and heated through the receiver and
then stored until power is needed from the plant.  The molten salt is then (more…)