California and Texas alone have the potential to supply 96 per cent of all electricity in the United States.

Energy Reporter - Sun's rays ARE gold

If David Mills gets his way, America's sun-bathed states and the deserts of Asia and Africa will become hubs of clean-power generation for their respective continents. He's determined to get countries such as the United States and China off their nasty habit of burning coal. He's got the financial backing of two of the world's highest-profile venture capitalists, and the attention of former U.S. president Bill Clinton.

Mills,  has spent 30 years trying to refine the technology to the point where it can be scaled up to the size of a major power plant and compete on price with coal-fired generation.

... estimating that California and Texas alone have the potential to supply 96 per cent of all electricity in the United States. "The amount of area we require to generate all of the United States' electricity is 145 kilometres by 145 kilometres."

 

It sounds large, but put into perspective, it's less area than the amount of U.S. land that's mined for coal. "It's also very small compared to the area of desert that's available," he says.
On a worldwide basis, the potential is huge.

 

Greenpeace and the European Solar Thermal Industry Association concluded in a 2005 report that "there are no technical, economic or resource barriers to supplying 5 per cent of the world's electricity needs from solar thermal power by 2040" – equivalent to about 600 nuclear reactors or 1,200 medium-sized coal plants.

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