Concentrated Solar Power: Is There a Reason To Stay Hopeful?

When I conducted my “25 interviews with subject matter experts” for my first book on renewable energy (Renewable Energy – Facts and Fantasies) in 2010, I came away with a fairly exuberant viewpoint on CSP (concentrated solar power, aka solar thermal).  But it hasn’t been a good five years in the interim, largely due to the unforeseen and precipitous decline in the costs of solar PV.

Here’s an American company that just announced that it’s giving up the ghost on CSP.

I remain hopeful that this technology will be given the same chance that was afforded to PV and wind, i.e., several decades of intensive R&D, before our civilization finally makes a decision on it one way or the other.