On a sunny day, the air at the top of the tower would be 70 degrees Fahrenheit (20 degrees Celsius), whereas the air in the greenhouse could reach 160 degrees Fahrenheit (70 degrees Celsius). As this hot air escapes up the tower at 34 mph (15 meters per second), it spins 32 turbines that generate up to 200 megawatts of electricity.

Even with all this power, the solar tower is less than one tenth as efficient as solar cells in converting the sun's energy into electricity.

The advantage for a solar tower is that its materials are much less expensive.

you did some interesting clips, thanks!

Well hope this happens before He switches off the 'main switch'?!

Try to imagine a world where every roof is a solar collector.
No power poles or cables
Highways with dividers that have solar collectors streaching for miles.
Cars with solar collectors on horizontle surfaces.
Foundations made of dry storage batteries.

These things can be done but we are unwilling to do it because of greed. Who would pay for it?

I'd much prefer to see these dotting the landscape rather than nuke plants

Me too. If buildings had their own power generation and storage ability there would also be no need for powerlines across the landscape.
With wireless technology advancing there wouldn't be phone poles either.
Get rid of cable service in favor of satellite and we would have a wireless countryside.

Solar energy is of course the cleanest and most available. It will certainly serve a substantial fraction of humanity's near future needs. However, a bit further beyond the immediate horizon, I can see a civilization with huge energy demands. Not even close to the scale of current predictions. Nuclear fusion plants will probably become essential and ubiquitous. The good news however is that unlike current nuclear technology, they will be clean and entirely safe.

they will be clean and entirely safe

in the past the poorest and often most dangerous countries in the world were the last to adopt clean and safe when cheap and destructive are available- nukes are way beyond other WMD and energy sources in their potential destruction, so we'd better be pretty darn sure everyone on the planet gets clean and safe....

Agreed. The distribution of wealth, is the key to many political and economical problems.