How Australia got hot for solar power. Down under, they’re all over alternative energy – starting with a 1,600-foot tall "solar tower" that can power a small city.

Rattling down a red dirt road on the edge of the Australian outback, Roger Davey hits the brakes and hops out of a rented Corolla. With a sweep of his arm, he surveys his domain – 24,000 acres of emptiness stretching toward the horizon, the landscape bare but for clumps of scrubby eucalyptus trees and an occasional sheep.

It’s a dead-calm antipodean winter’s day, the silence of this vast ranch called Tapio Station broken only by the cry of a currawong bird. Davey, chief executive of Melbourne renewable-energy company EnviroMission, aims to break ground here early next year on the world’s first commercial "solar tower" power station.

Business 2.0 Magazine
By Todd Woody

Full Story: http://money.cnn.com/2006/08/01/technology/towerofpower0802.biz2/index.htm