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The 80% figure I cited was for pumped water. Sorry, I should have been more specific.

http://beyondzeroemissions.org/media/radio/santiago-arias-technical-director-gemasolar-supplying-24-hour-solar-power-121117
Looking at this interview about molten salt from the company Gemasola it looks like the technolgy has come quite a ways.

"....This winter we have already achieved 404MWh in 24 hrs.... In summertime then we reached 428MWh in a single day...."

There doesn't seem to significant degradation due to Winter conditions

More basic research is needed but renewables will become economical on their own eventually.

You mean like this: http://beyondzeroemissions.org/

Just a pity our (Australian) economy depends so much on digging up coal and iron ore to send to China.

Eh...I dont see any plan.

Okay, so I guess you missed these links on the left of the page?

Download the full Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan here (8.4MB pdf, 194 pages).

Download the Synopsis of the plan here (2.2MB pdf, 17 pages)

Buy Hard copies from the University of Melbourne Energy Institute.

Download Frequently Asked Questions (1.9MB pdf, 11 pages)

They used to be, as you described, "a group trying to develop a plan". Then, in July last year, they completed their plan, and released it.

(And if all that reading is too much, here's the 6 page executive summary of the plan which was released in February 2010.)

Eh...I dont see any plan.

Okay, so I guess you missed these links on the left of the page?

Download the full Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan here (8.4MB pdf, 194 pages).

Download the Synopsis of the plan here (2.2MB pdf, 17 pages)

Buy Hard copies from the University of Melbourne Energy Institute.

Download Frequently Asked Questions (1.9MB pdf, 11 pages)

They used to be, as you described, "a group trying to develop a plan". Then, in July last year, they completed their plan, and released it.

(And if all that reading is too much, here's the 6 page executive summary of the plan which was released in February 2010.)

Eh...I dont see any plan.

Okay, so I guess you missed these links on the left of the page?

Download the full Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan here (8.4MB pdf, 194 pages).

Download the Synopsis of the plan here (2.2MB pdf, 17 pages)

Buy Hard copies from the University of Melbourne Energy Institute.

Download Frequently Asked Questions (1.9MB pdf, 11 pages)

They used to be, as you described, "a group trying to develop a plan". Then, in July last year, they completed their plan, and released it.

(And if all that reading is too much, here's the 6 page executive summary of the plan which was released in February 2010.)

Eh...I dont see any plan.

Okay, so I guess you missed these links on the left of the page?

Download the full Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan here (8.4MB pdf, 194 pages).

Download the Synopsis of the plan here (2.2MB pdf, 17 pages)

Buy Hard copies from the University of Melbourne Energy Institute.

Download Frequently Asked Questions (1.9MB pdf, 11 pages)

They used to be, as you described, "a group trying to develop a plan". Then, in July last year, they completed their plan, and released it.

(And if all that reading is too much, here's the 6 page executive summary of the plan which was released in February 2010.)

Eh...I dont see any plan.

Okay, so I guess you missed these links on the left of the page?

Download the full Zero Carbon Australia Stationary Energy Plan here (8.4MB pdf, 194 pages).

Download the Synopsis of the plan here (2.2MB pdf, 17 pages)

Buy Hard copies from the University of Melbourne Energy Institute.

Download Frequently Asked Questions (1.9MB pdf, 11 pages)

They used to be, as you described, "a group trying to develop a plan". Then, in July last year, they completed their plan, and released it.

(And if all that reading is too much, here's the 6 page executive summary of the plan which was released in February 2010.)

What the hell are they going to replace it with? More fossil fuels?
Sunshine and wind aren't going to meet any nation's energy demands with current technology.

http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/ has a plan for 100% renewable zero-carbon energy for Australia by 2020 using only current, commercially available technology, and no nuclear (because a new nuclear power station wouldn't be ready in time, not for any ideological reason).

I've been doing some research into renewable energy in an Australian context at the University of Newcastle. The most commonly thrown around figure is 1C/day of loss at operating temperatures.

In doing some simple simulations (using real world demand, wind farm output and direct solar irradiance data) I've found that 50GW of wind farms (peak, scaled by 50x from Australia's current ~1GW peak wind capacity) and ~42GW of concentrated solar thermal (roughly 53x53km square area, spread across Australia on 12 sites) with 24hrs of storage is able to supply all of Australia's current electricity demand. The thermal storage dropped to ~10% capacity at it's lowest point.

The simulation tried to closely model the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon Australia 2020 plan. Their modeling uses a different demand profile, one scaled to a proposed 2020 level after compensating for growth, electrification of cars etc.

Sorry to jump back in the middle of the thread but unfortunately here it appears that you have misunderstood some things about dry cooling. This article describes well what I presume is the sort of air cooled systems you are talking about:
http://beyondzeroemissions.org/media/newswire/dry-cooling-slaking-thirst-concentrated-solar-power-091023
Please note what I presumed should be obvious - you take a performance hit with the trade off that it can be used in areas with less water. It's a solution to a big problem but has nothing to do with with what I wrote about increasing scale.
Since heat is being transferred by convection air cooling is not able to remove as much heat as liquid cooling if all other things are equal.