SPS rectennae energy conversion questions

I recently brought up the topic of SSPS at the yahoogroup energyoptions.
First I looked back through their archives to see what's been said, and
found some brief mentions -mostly lots of the usual dis-misinformation.
Among the stuff like frying cities and exploding birds, somebody mentioned
the method of turning the microwaves to power on the ground, and they
maintained that the preferred method was to boil water to turn turbines.

Any thoughts on this exchange (below)?
Are currently floated proposals still using microwaves?
I refered them to the following site. Any more current information online?
http://permanent.com/p-sps.htm