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Massive Solar Plant In the Sahara Could Help Keep the EU Powered (digitaltrends.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Digital Trends: In the global race to ditch fossil fuel reliance for more renewable energy sources, Europe is already making some impressive strides. That is likely to ramp up considerably thanks to a new European Union plan to build a large solar plant in the Sahara desert -- with the ability to generate enough power to keep much of Europe juiced up. In all, the enormous solar farm aims to produce 4.5 gigawatts of power, which can then be transmitted across the Mediterranean from Tunisia to mainland Europe. TuNur's proposed solar farm utilizes an enormous quantity of mirrors to reflect sunlight onto a central collector, which uses molten salt to store the energy as heat. Three HVDC submarine cables will then transport the power to Europe. The first cable will link Tunisia and Malta, the second will link Tunisia to central Italy, and a third will link Tunisia to the south of France. "We are opening a new energy corridor to allow Europe to import cheap solar power from the Sahara on a massive scale," Daniel Rich, Chief Operating Officer of TuNur, the company behind the project, told Digital Trends. "This will help Europe meet its Paris Climate Agreement emissions reduction commitments quickly and cost effectively. It also will give a much-needed boost to the Tunisia economy through significant investment into the country, creation of thousands of jobs, new tax revenues, and the establishment of a new solar industry that can help support their future domestic demand."
You have to start somewhere
I hope that Africa create a lot of energy ... for africans.
Yeah... europeans could enjoy that massive energy though lines, but it's better that we raise african life quality instead to move the wealth to Europe and later have a lot of african migration into Europe.
If you had a clue about geography (or just checked a map) you may have noticed that the cable would pass entirely in Tunisia, closer to the border with Algeria than with Libya. Both Tunisia and Algeria are relatively politically stable, although Algeria is not very democratic.
Anyway, it is possible that the project will go nowhere, but I'm pretty sure that the engineers and politicians involved will take due care to read all this Slashdot discussion and take in account your valuable expertise on the subject, they may even send you some money for the invaluable insight you have provided!
this post contain no useful information, no need to mod it down
Honestly, it would likely become a lot more stable if the world suddenly found a serious self-interest in making it so.
You're right. But the current situation is that much of Europe's energy is supplied by Russia, which, in the current geopolitical climate, is even worse for energy security because it gives the Kremlin the power to strongarm the Union by threatening to raise prices or close the gas flow entirely.
If only there was a mineral of some sort in the ground that could be used to generate energy via nuclear fission that was safer per kilowatt than other energy production sources,and if only someone had devised ways of storing the radioactive waste safely...
But because radiation is scary to people who do not understand the difference between modern reactors and Chernobyl/Fukushima, my fellow Europeans seem somehow terrified by it, even though countries like France have been using it to generate over a third of all their energy for long.
Don't get me wrong here, I'm not saying nuclear is the perfect solution. It's not. But it's a whole lot better for energy security and for the climate than continuing to use coal, oil and natural gas while we try to figure out cleaner solutions that work even in less sunny areas.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
So hell!
Lets make our power dependent on one huge collection of transmission lines that can be taken down with one well placed bomb.
And lets place that in one of the most war torn regions in the world.
That will work out just great.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
It provides significant power during times of peak demand. And it's the first one.
Anyway, if we are willing to invest tens of billions of Euros in single nuclear plants that generate less than half that much, it seems like it's pretty "significant".
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SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Really, you don't think half a billion dollars in annual revenue (by my rough estimation of how much Tunisia stands to earn, with commercial rates and a realistic capacity factor and profit margin) would have an impact on the quality of living there?
Tunisia specifically modified their energy law in 2015 to allow projects like this. Tunisia doesn't have some scarcity of desert land, it has a scarcity of income.
He's really very... gentle... and fuzzy. We're becoming fast friends.