China Energy News has reported a surprising detail regarding China’s nascent Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) industry – that the supply of molten salt (sodium nitrate and potassium nitrate) has fallen afoul of the fertilizer shortage. The outlet also reports no less than 53 photothermal projects under development in China, including 25 using molten salt – and those would have an average size of at least 100 MW, mostly integrated into hybrid green power complexes or built standalone as earlier government-backed pilot projects. While CSP has mostly failed to take off, certainly compared to batteries, it still has two niches which it may survive in. One is 24-hour or even longer storage duration, the other is joint power and heat provision.…