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This is a solar furnace, of which there are many in use today. The biggest one in the world is the Odeillo Solar Furnace located in Odeillo, France. The top 3 in use in the United States are at Sandia National Labs, Georgia Tech and the White Sands Missile Test Range. Awesome stuff!

One amusing side note is that Frank Gehry's popular postmodern buildings have been noted to act as solar collectors, effectively frying people passing by on the sidewalk.

The other not-so-good meme is that solar energy has to replace everything that is available already immediately.

A set of Solar Panels on the roof of a house (or rather some solar thermal water heater) cannot replace all the gas that a house needs. But it CAN reduct your enegy bill considerably. My dad has a setup like that on our roof and he got a visit from the utilities who thought he has mucked around with the meter. Not so, a few simply black sets of pipies pre heated the water which helped reduce the electicity bill.

I work in a building which (admittedly with the help of a solar research institute) has reduced its energy consumption by 65% by good use of isolation and glazing. I might add that this is in Germany, not exactly the sunniest place in the world, so it works in more northern climes too.

The key here is local power generation and better isolation of the building instead of massive central power stations. For instance, the people in the previous article moans that a notebook cannot be powered by it. No, maybe not. But those cells might increase the duration of your battery by an hour or two and that is useful in itself. Because you get more out of your notebook and reduce consumption of fossil/nuclear powered electricity.

Most solar research does not deal with PV in any case, it deals with better isolation and solar thermal (concentrated rays and such) to reduce reliance on other energy sources.

Anone wants to know more about Solar please visit
ISES.

The other not-so-good meme is that solar energy has to replace everything that is available already immediately.

A set of Solar Panels on the roof of a house (or rather some solar thermal water heater) cannot replace all the gas that a house needs. But it CAN reduct your enegy bill considerably. My dad has a setup like that on our roof and he got a visit from the utilities who thought he has mucked around with the meter. No so, a few simply black sets of pipies pre heated the water which helped reduce the electicity bill.

I work in a building which (admittedly with the help of a solar research institute) has reduced its energy consumption by 65% by good use of isolation and glazing.

The key here is local power generation and better isolation of the building instead of massive central power stations. For instance, the people in the previous article moans that a notebook cannot be powered by it. No, maybe not. But solar energy might increasy the duration of your battery by an hour or two and that is useful in itself.

Most solar research does not dela with PV in any case, it deals with better isolation and solar thermal (concentrated rays and such) to reduce reliance on other energy sources.

Anone wants to know more about Solar please visit
ISES.

Puh, another self-sustaining house. No, not in the Sahara, neither in Texas or South California:
Freiburg, Germany, 1992, running with solar power and hydrogen(PDF), (and a picture of it)

Meh, kinda dinky to tack this on my own post... but I found a picture of the Manzanares prototype tower - warning though, big picture (390K).

The article mentions a prototype generator that was built at Manzanares in Spain.

There's a picture of a "small" prototype, which is pretty damned impressive.