How Mirrors Could Solve our Energy Problem

so cool... i mean hot. fantastic video series. I'd love to see more, even the cars.

The power plants get charged for producing too much energy. it makes me cringe - like horrible visions of paying farmers to not produce food, or worse throw away food. There has to be someone on the grid that can use those electrons. why are we not prioritizing the zero emission / renewable sources over other production methods??? it seems like hydro, solar, etc should be run at 100% capacity for whenever that source is available (i.e. during the day for solar), use any stored energy sources at night, then if you really need more at night go to fossil fuel sources.

i get the parabolic mirror focuses the energy on the oil, but it also seems like there could be a lot of energy captured in areas not directly at the focal point. like we are taking a very large amount of land by really only capturing a small part of solar energy arriving on site.