Less smoke, more mirrors: Mojave Desert to generate enough energy to power Bristol
Concentrated solar power technology is a cheap, effective way to generate green electricity from the sun's energy. It's particularly effective in the desert, where the sun is fierce and reliable, which is why Google-backed solar energy start-up, eSolar, has recently decided to build 11 solar farms in the Mojave Desert - one of the hottest places on Earth. 
By 2011, just 0.7% of the Mojave Desert (that's the arid bit northeast of Los Angeles, for those of you who did geography) is forecast to be generating enough green energy to power 400,000 American homes, or a town the size of Bristol.
How? Using mirrors to focus sunlight onto a central tower 40-stories high, where the heat will be used to boil water, generating steam that turns an electricity-generating turbine.
The solar farms could have some adverse effects on the Mojave's fragile desert ecosystem, but it's probably a 'necessary compromise' according to California State University's Professor of Botany, Darren Sandquist. Loss of what I like to call 'Napoleon' plants (tiny but terribly important) in the Mojave could trigger huge dust storms, but Sandquist thinks that 'it's all part of becoming less reliant on oil, and more reliant on solar and wind power.'
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