An eye-watering $2.2 billion was reportedly spent on the Ivanpah Solar Power Facility, a solar thermal plant based in the Mojave Desert in California.

The plant, made up of three 140-metre (459-foot) towers and nearly 174,000 computer-controlled mirrors called heliostats, opened in 2014, but it will be switched off for good next year after failing to meet its energy targets despite hopes it was going to make America ‘a world leader in solar energy’