Breakthrough: Concentrated Solar Power All Over Southwest US

You are looking at a picture of the solar power plant now being developed all over the American southwest by a company called eSolar. Notice: no smokestacks; no coal chutes; no rail lines stretching to the horizon for coal trains to approach. It's a beautiful sight.
Notice, too, all around the powerhouse containing the steam turbine and generator are the thermal receiver towers and mirror arrays that make this thing work using only the abundant heat energy of the sun.
This is not photovoltaic technology that directly converts the sun's rays into electric current. This is thermal technology that collects and amplifies the sun's heat energy to create steam on an industrial scale, steam that spins turbines to generate power.
You might say it's a giant water boiler, but instead of burning coal, igniting natural gas or splitting atoms to create steam power, this plant uses the heat that naturally falls on the earth.

To serve the renewable electricity needs of utility-scale energy providers, eSolar has developed a market disrupting solar thermal power plant technology. Generation can be scaled from 25 MW to over 500 MW at energy prices competitive with traditional fossil fuels.
Okay two sentences. And the company explains its value proposition around these five ideas:
Low Cost
Our heliostats are designed to fit efficiently into shipping containers to keep transportation costs low, and they are pre-assembled at the factory to minimize on-site labor. The result is a considerable capital cost reduction compared to existing solar thermal power plants.
Fast Installation
By employing a repeating frame structure and a revolutionary calibration system, eSolar has eliminated the need for high-precision surveying, delicate installation, and individual alignment of mirrors. Minimal skilled labor is needed to build the solar field.
Low Profile
The small size of eSolar's heliostats means a very low wind profile, which translates into higher reliability in all wind conditions, lower risk of wind damage, and more power plant up-time. Because eSolar heliostats are mass manufactured, complete replacement units can be stocked on site and installed quickly at low cost.
Modular and Scalable
Our power plants are structured on a 25 MW base unit, called a module, consisting of several thermal receiver towers, each with a field of heliostats. These modules are replicated as many times as necessary to fit specific requirements from 25 MW to over 500 MW.
Reliable and Stable
If one thermal receiver tower is off line, the other towers in a module continue to produce power. If one entire module is off line, power continues to be generated by the other modules in the plant. For both large and small installations, this redundancy provides a high level of energy security under a wide variety of operating conditions.

Has the myth of "clean coal" met its match? Google is betting $10 million on eSolar. It's looking like awfully smart money.