remember the 42.8%

Friday August 3rd 2007 09:49 AM PST

So just talking about the solar the other day really has me excited about this article today in wired. The solar panels I was talking about the other day had achieved at 42.8% efficiency, but it looks like there are actually other options for solar even at a lower efficiency.

Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric are planning on building a couple plants in the desert that will only operate at around 30% efficiency, but they're not using photovoltaics. Instead they're using an "external heat" engine, so it looks like they're going to be able to MAKE COMPLETELY CLEAN electricity and make it BIG! The bigger of the two plants is 500 megawatts, so this is no little thing.