Slashdot Mirror
Should We Fill the Sahara With Solar Panels? (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader writes: A panel of experts at the BBC discuss the possibility of re-purposing the Sahara Desert. Instead of having over 9 million square kilometers of barren sand, we could start a massive project to gradually fill it with solar panels. The remarks are illuminating: "The technology is good. It's matured a lot in the last few years in terms of thermal storage. And the Sahara desert is so big that if there is cloudy weather, it's localized, and with thermal storage, it can provide absolutely reliable power." The difficulties turn out to be mostly political: "The biggest potential pitfall is that it's politically complicated. You're not going to develop solar energy in the Sahara unless you have a very strong state involvement, both on the side of the consumers and the project developers." And one of the panelists points out that Africa must have a large share of the benefits: "Things have changed. Africans are self-confident now, they want to participate in their development, and they want to have part of their resources, they are not just there to always give to the rest of the world and remain poor."
As part of the infrastructure they build in defences to prevent the mirrors getting sandblasted. Those can be anything from trees to walls. One of the benefits of a project like this is that it halts and reverses desertification.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
It will improve but if you were to put a billion dollars into solar panels, you would see a fifth the amount of solar actually built there which changes the cost/benefit equation substantially.
Plus it becomes a massive target for attacks and blackmail over attacks. You could patrol and militarize the region but that would cost money and change the cost/benefit again.
And... some of the dunes in the sahara are 75 stories tall and they drift around and could cover your facility if left unchecked.
And finally, creating that much shade under the panels would probably change the microclimate. You might see changes under the panels- life taking a foothold in the shade. Not sure what unintended consequenes that might have.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
I do not see the word “albedo” in this article. This is worrying. A lot of ecologist militant consider solar and wind energy as free energy just there for the taking. This is mostly true, but not entirely true.
Covering a large area of land with solar panels (even assuming they are thermal panels, not too fragile and with not too much fabrication byproducts) would change the albedo of that area, i.e. the proportion of solar light that is reflected by the ground. This will in turn change the climate of the area, and if the area is large enough, change the climate of the whole planet by changing the trade winds. It is entirely possible that in this particular instance the change would be for the good, but it is very hard to predict.
The same applies to large farms of wind turbines: they capture energy from the wind, and therefore weaken prevailing winds. Any large-scale localized change to elements of the climate has very complex consequences.
Would be improved political stability of those regions. Whilst it's no excuse, there is a connection between poverty and extreme behaviour. Give those countries a regular income that they earn. The system could create a lot of jobs.
3.5% per 1000 kms for HVDC, which isn't too bad. Currently HVDC is used for the Rio Madeira run of 2375 kms, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.... HVDC is also superior for under water use, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism