Could these contraptions be a useful way to generate electric power in industrial quantities
Yes Ray, it easily could produce huge amount of cheep and clean energy
Work has been underway since 2001 in the use of concentrating solar dishes for electrical power generation. Originally, this consisted of two dish-Stirling systems: one marketed by SES (Stirling Energy Systems) and one marketed by SAIC (Science Applications International Corporation). The latter used a Stirling Thermal Motors engine. A picture of these two systems is shown in Figure 1. Each unit developed about 25 kW at maximum operational conditions, and the generated power fed into the Nevada Power grid. Nevada Power is cooperating with the project and furnished the interconnect equipment.
http://www.me.unlv.edu/research/cer/research.htm
Brain
C. Clarke:
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."