Welcome to the age of 'anything works' engineering

[crustycurmudgeo]

This article linked to by slashdot describes a plan to make electricity from rising solar heated air, air from a couple of square miles of glass covered greenhouse.

I have major issues with this:
1) who is going to keep that much glass dusted off after every dust storm?
2) doesn't anyone check to see how much fossil fuel needs to be burned to

Comments

solar energy

[katiecam]

" Its 200-megawatt power generation capacity will reliably feed the grid with enough power for 150,000 US homes, and once it's built, it can be expected to more or less sit there producing clean, renewable power with virtually no maintenance until it's more than 80 years old."

80 yrs of 200 MW solar energy maintenance free, clean energy, sign me up! I think this is a great idea. But the structure seems too tall for reality!!