Covering the desert of Africa in solar panels

[emag]

Originally Posted by SLP

What is really needed is to forget about photovoltaics. They are too expensive and inefficient.

No, what we need to do is start investing in them right now. One of the facts of manufacturing is that the more of something you produce, the more the cost of producing it goes down. So the sooner governments and big businesses start adopting solar technology, the sooner prices will come down.
Efficiency will also go up faster because there will be more research being done on it now that there is a bigger market for it.

For cheap efficient solar power we should use solar hot water heaters. Then run the water through a heat exchanger to a Stirling engine.

Um, Stirling engines aren't cheap. Plus they require a lot more maintenance than solar panels.
But people should definitely start using solar hot water heaters, those are pretty cheap and efficient.