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Europe To Import Sahara Solar Power Within 5 Years
An anonymous reader writes "If just 1% of the Sahara Desert were covered in concentrating solar panels it would create enough energy to power the entire world. That's a powerful number, and the European Union has decided to jump on its proximity to the Sahara in order to reap some benefits from the untapped solar energy beaming down on Northern Africa. Yesterday, European Energy Commissioner Guenther Oettinger announced that Europe will start importing solar energy from the Sahara within the next five years. It is estimated that the initiative will cost €400 billion ($495 billion). It's part of an EU goal to derive 20% of its power from renewable sources by 2020. From the article: 'The EU is backing the construction of new electricity cables, known as inter-connectors, under the Mediterranean Sea to carry this renewable energy from North Africa to Europe. Some environmental groups have warned these cables could be used instead to import non-renewable electricity from coal- and gas-fired power stations in north Africa.' To this the energy minister replied, essentially, 'Good question, we'll get back to you on that.'"
Well, we're talking about North Africa, not the Middle East. Sure, they're close to each other geographically, but the political realities are different. Further, the direct foreign investment of this sort of "infrastructure" could be beneficial. The influx of money should raise the standard of living those countries and it might encourage a different sort of economic growth than what we've seen in economies fueled by petrodollars.
If you have power to spare, even moderately efficient energy storage solutions become viable.
A water->hydrogen->water cycle may be less than 50% efficient, but then just take 2%.
Same for solar thermal storage in molten salt solutions.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
They are not nutcases. They are powerful pressure groups, able to influence the policies that rule your life.
Unfortunately those two things are not mutually exclusive.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
I completely agree. Spain is investing quite a bit in Morocco lately, for it is very close geographically and the costs are quite low. Not as low as in China but again, it's easier to work with people who at least uses the same alphabet as you do. In Morocco they speak French but many people speak Spanish too. It seems that we will finally have the kind of mutually beneficial relationship with them as other countries have managed to have with their former colonies. We are only a century behind or so.
Unlike some other "educated" countries, the people of Morocco have realized that some people in other countries speak different languages, and that you can't overcome this by simply talking at them with an increased volume and decreased speed.
I hate printers.
The EU has bigger economy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
> If just 1% of the Sahara
>...suddenly reflected a hell of a lot less heat back into the atmosphere, you're going to alter the climate drastically
> -- which may well reduce the amount of energy you have to tap, as it's likely to cause a regional cooling,
> which may result in greater cloud formation. I'd want to see the climatologists study the proposal.
You don't need to be a climatologist to study that, high school math easily does it!
Cross section of earth: > 3/4 * (40.000km)^2= 1.2e9 km^2
Maximum area to be covered by solar cells in the desert for this project: 100km * 100km = 1e4 km^2
Increase in solar radiation absorbed by earth surface: less than 0.001%
(assuming absorption in area covered by solar cells is doubled, and not even considering the fact that it is visible only during the day)
Increasing the absorbed energy by app. 1.3% will yield a temperature increase of 1K (300K -> 301K, radiated heat increases by fourth power of absolute temperature), so the 10.000km^2 of solar cells in the sahara will increase the temperature of the earth by less than a thousandth of a degree centigrade.
You aren't allowed to comment on geopolitics any more until you can tell the difference between different sorts of people that aren't white...
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of llamas.
The influx of money should raise the standard of living [in] those countries and it might encourage a different sort of economic growth than what we've seen in economies fueled by petrodollars.
What growth? Countries which get essentially "free money" often have shrinking economies . Whether they get paid for oil underground or sun shining on the ground doesn't matter. They don't become poor, but they end up importing everything because local labor is so unattractive an expensive. See Dutch disease etc., this was just recently discussed on /. in relation to the "trillion dollar ore miracle" in Afghanistan.
And these solar arrays are probably built by non-local companies, so no local know-how is rewarded. Then the states just get monetary compensation for maintenance work, not for fabricating anything. Now how to build a local economy.
Europe buys oil from Libya since ages.
No problem there.
You really need to think big.
It's a bonus that Morocco and Algeria are in this project.
These Countries need a decent source of income.
And if East Sahara is wired up, there will be no stopping wiring up Egypt, Jordan
Mauretania, Niger, Chad.
And why don't the Saudis add themselves to that grid?
The Chinese could tap into Taklamakan,
the US surely has some spare desert to make useful.