Basically “a tech that looked promising in 2010 using solar mirrors and thermal batteries has lost out to rapidly advancing solar panels and chemical batteries. It is being shutdown now.”
The failure of an experimental tech is not some roaring indictment of the federal energy loans program. The whole point of the program is to try to get tech off the ground until it’s self-sustaining commercially. You’re going to get some misses there, but the wins far, far outweigh them.
Yeah. If anything, it’s a really good sign that the tech has advanced so far that something that was cutting-edge, not that long ago, is now so relatively-ineffective that it’s not even worth running the facility anymore.
Residents report briefly seeing a column of heavenly light coming out of the sky. Apocalypse predictors haven’t been this excited since the War.