NYT: California regulators on Wednesday approved a license for the nation’s first large-scale solar thermal power plant in two decades. The licensing of the 250-megawatt Beacon Solar Energy Project after a two-and-a-half-year environmental review comes as several other big solar farms are set to receive approval from the California Energy Commission in the next month. "I hope this is the first of many more large-scale solar projects we will permit," said Jeffrey D. Byron, a member …