- While Washington wallows, solutions such as the following need support even more. - Editor 
  

The world’s first molten salt concentrating solar power plant- Archimede
This month, the Italian utility Enel unveiled “Archimede”, the first Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) plant in the world to use molten salts for heat transfer and storage, and the first to be fully integrated to an existing combined-cycle gas power plant. Newer CSP plants, as the many under construction in Spain, use molten salts storage to extend the plants’ daily operating hours. Archimede is the first plant in the world to use molten salts not just to store heat but also to collect it from the sun in the first place. This is a competitive advantage, for a variety of reasons. Molten salts can operate at higher temperatures than oils (up to 550°C instead of 390°C), therefore increasing efficiency and power output of a plant. With the higher-temperature heat storage allowed by the direct use of salts, the plant can also extend its operating hours well further than an oil-operated CSP plant with molten salt storage, thus working 24 hours a day for several days in the absence of sun or during rainy days. This feature also enables a simplified plant design.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/22/first-molten-salt-solar-power