Solar Power Push

Today in Montreal, Canada, ten thousand environmentalists and officials have gathered to look beyond the years and framework of the Kyoto Protocol, at the future of the world's increasingly urgent struggle with global warming. Thousands of miles to the south, one clue may lie in plans for the sunny Mojave Desert.

After years in the outback of energy production, solar energy is making a comeback — or more accurately, a breakthrough.

This is not your father's solar power — lukewarm showers from Birkenstock panels perched on the roof. This is industrial-strength solar. Giant dishes in the desert are designed to turn big turbines, to power whole cities. After the Flubber and hula hoops era of solar, this may be the real deal.

Hear about the resurgence of solar energy.

Guests:

Peter Spotts, science correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor

Tim Gnatek, wrote about Stirling initiative for Technology Review magazine

Bruce Osborn, chief executive of Stirling Energy Systems

Frank Laird, professor at the Graduate School of International Studies at the University of Denver, author of "Solar Energy, Technology Policy and Institutional Values

Daniel Kamman, Director of the Renawable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory at The University of California