The search for ways to reduce carbon emissions has led to government grant money for schemes ranging from promising to wacky. Recognizing that there is no currently viable replacement for fossil fuels, with the possible exception of nuclear power, the US and other countries with large coal deposits are desperately looking for ways to continue burning coal without incurring the wrath of nature or the IPCC. Clear evidence of the seriousness of this effort is evident in this week’s special edition of Science, dedicated to carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) technology.
http://theresilientearth.com/ ?q=content/ serious-black-quest-clean-coal

An organic Rankine cycle, using a working fluid having a high molecular weight and a low boiling point, could produce power from low temperature heat sources. Geothermal too. No cooling towers or other water waste in condensing the working fluid — ambient air cooling will do. Honeywell has developed an organic working fluid which may be right.

“Any projections as to how much of our (US) electricity needs could be supplied by thermal solar?”

Here are a few numbers

A study by Western Governors Association
said the industry could build 13 GW by 2015
and that 300 GW could be built near existing transmission lines.
The power cost would fall when there were 4 GW installed, to under 10cents/kWh from present 12-17cents/kWh and with economy of scale would fall to 5-8cents/kWh after that.

There are already 2 GW contracted for or being built in California. Look at the list of U.S. projects and proposed plants at the link in Joe’s article here near top of the page.
It shows 4,161 MW solar thermal and a little over 200 MW CPV proposed or approved in U.S. Most of it’s in California, but also Florida and Arizona.

Ausra and others say an area 92 by 92 miles could power the whole country.
About 1% of southwest desert lands. Less land than now used for coal plants and coal mining.

Present coal capacity is 313 GW – just under a third of national capacity and supplying 50% of kWhs in U.S.

The Solar Grand Plan proposal published by Scientific American is worth reading. I think maybe someone from First Solar was on this board, because of it’s emphasis on thin film cadmium teluride concentrating PV, rather than the CSP that makes more sense.
But it is a pretty detailed plan to provide 69% of U.S. electricity with solar by 2050. And they show how it could be paid for.
http://www.sciam.com/ article.cfm?id=a-solar-grand-plan
Interestingly the $400 billion in tax dollars they propose spending in subsidies over about 40 years is about how much we give the fossil fuel industry in subsidies about every
eight years.

Another interesting proposal is TREC -
a plan to power Europe, the MidEast, and Northern Africa with electricity, combined heat and power(CHP), and water desalinization, all from solar thermal plants. It includes building an HVDC transmission system throughout the area.
http://www.solarserver.de/ solarmagazin/ solar-report_0207_e.html

As to “High Effective Load Carrying Capacity,” how about just “high output?”

Concentrating Solar Thermal Electricity with High Effective Load Carrying Capacity. CSTEHELCC.

But that’s such a mouthful, and such a strange acronym. Just call it CST load following for sake of brevity.

If hydrogen fraction drilling is commercialized, expect deep geothermal power to be substantially cheaper.

To me, this holds the most promise for 24/365 power. Can be created closer to point of use, saving transmission costs.

Prices are hard to call at this point, but speculation seems to put it in the same range as thermal solar.

[JR: Needs $$$, but could be big. I blogged about it here.]

[JR: Not correct. Wind is variable and mostly nighttime. Where daytime or load following is needed, CSP will rule.]

A HVDC transmission line from the SW to the NE might be roughly 2,500 km so perhaps it’s not inconceivable that we would choose to ship power up there.

I suppose I was trying to get a handle on how large a role thermal solar is likely to play in our future energy mix.

[JR: I expect to be the single biggest source of low-carbon electricity.]

Hydro is pretty fixed. There’s not much more potential that we are likely to tap. And I think the probability of significant new nuclear quite low due to non-competitive costs.

Natural gas does release some sequestered carbon. It would seem to be in our best interest (once we’ve replaced coal) to “park” our NG plants and use them only if renewables lag behind demand at times. Additionally it’s going to get more expensive to purchase fuel so there’s going to be financial pressure to quit using NG as/if solar and storage drop in price and other renewables come on line.

So you can work out the operating losses of sending Arizona power to Maine.