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It's a fair question, and the answer is linked to sheer numbers.

Currently it takes a forrest of wind generators, each on a tower, to replace a single (albeit much larger) generator continously and precisely spun as a steam turbine from (say) coal fired heat sources.

Solar takes acres of rare eath films, and solar+wind needs some form of load smoothing via energy storage so there's additional demand if massive battery banks are used (pumped hydro, heat in sodium, other alternatives exist but not always applicable).



I thought solar farms were switching to mirrors concentrating heat on a superheated salt solution.


That's a goal of some that shows promise but so far to date concentrated solar power schemes (of various kinds) have only reach < 10 GW (in total, globally) last I checked [1].

Photovoltaics, by comparison [2]:

    Solar PV generation increased by a record 179 TWh (up 22%) in 2021 to exceed 1 000 TWh. 
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentrated_solar_power

[2] https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv

All up a hell of a difference (so far) in generation capacity.

In an ideal future we'll see a lot more large CSP plants making better per GW usage of rare earths.




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