[dev_dull]

> Previous commercial concentrating solar thermal systems could only reach temperatures of 565 degrees Celsius, the company said. That’s useful for generating power, but can’t meet the needs of industrial processes.

Or we could build more nuclear power plants, which have the duty cycle necessary for industrial applications. It's no wonder that the more conservative politicians seem to love nuclear more: it's a pro-business, pro-industry carbon-free energy source, unlike wind and solar (or the insane amount of batteries to make it work.

[gnode]

While there are many benefits to nuclear power, this quote is at odds with your comment. Nuclear power suffers a low Carnot efficiency (around 30-40%), as it has an even lower operating temperature than the criticised old CSP design. While nuclear reactors can get arbitrarily hot, practical and safety considerations limit current designs to relatively low (and thus inefficient) temperatures.

Nuclear is also less practical for direct industrial use or distributed deployment because of safety concerns, with only a few exceptional cases like military marine propulsion.

[cromwellian]

The OP also ignores the staggering cost to commission and decommission a nuclear plant. Costs to decommission alone are $1-4 billion.

Solar can be deployed quicker, cheaper, and faster for anyone without access to a decade timespan and a billions of dollars of capital.