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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."
I live in Vietnam and we've had our internet access severely crippled seven (eight, nine?) times in the last few years because the submarine cables connecting the country to the rest of the world have been mysteriously severed.
I've looked at the map and it seems that every time, the approximate place where the cables (I believe all three of the ones that currently connect Vietnam) have been cut has been in a place that it would only affect Vietnam. For example the Asian American Gateway cable connects the U.S. with a bunch of nations here but I think it was only in the spur that connects Vietnam that was cut.
Of course it could be due to natural causes; undersea disturbances, fishermen dredging up fiber optic cables for their copper cladding (about a decade ago that was the reason!), even sharks. But since the government made damaging these cables a crime against the "national infrastructure" (which may be a capital offense) and since Vietnam, unlike some of its neighbors, is not a particularly active seismic zone, I'm not so sure. Of course one major power would have the will and ability to sever these cables without Vietnam being able to do anything (and maybe not being able to catch them doing it): China. What better way to cripple your up and coming neighbor's economy while getting away with complete deniability. (Fortunately, not all the cables were cut at the same time but that could be because it was only meant as a warning).
I believe that once, in the 50s or 60s, the then Soviet Union tried to cut some of the transatlantic cables connecting the U.S. with Europe. I understand that the U.S. quickly determined that the cables were not failing due to natural causes and since there was only one other country with the means to do so, quickly told the Soviets to stop or it would be WAR. (The U.S. was also developing means of tracking all sorts of submarine activity so maybe they didn't have to rely on deduction). Unfortunately, the Vietnamese cannot absolutely positively pin it on the Chinese (other powers may be playing some sneaky dirty games) and anyway they don't have nukes (or a decent military) to push back 1.3 billion people! (They also don't have any kind of decent underwater surveillance capabilities in contrast to the sonar/intelligence net the Chinese are intending to deploy throughout the entire South China sea.)
So, as much as I'd like to see a jobs program to try to (vainly?) employ the exploding numbers of millions (hundreds of millions? Soon billions?) of under/unemployed Africans to reduce Europe's carbon footprint, I don't think the governments involved would take the risk of being so reliant on three cables that could be instantly cut. Better would be to export the power to sub-saharan Africa to drive their economies with cheap, zero-C power.
But it can free us from dependence on Russian gas.
That's funny, because I keep hoping the Russians will help free us from islamic oil... And I certainly don't want yet another energy dependency on that part of the world.
This sounds quite like Desertec, or at least a small variant or part thereof.
I'd hope for such a project to bring some more stability to the region, if it ever goes anywhere.
An extremely good, and free, e-book on climate change recommended this solution in 2008. The author, David MacKay, was the Chief Scientific Advisor to the Department of Energy and Climate Change (UK).
Here's the book - I thoroughly recommend it: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air.
It attempts a quantative approach to determining whether particular alternative sources of energy are useful and sustainable or not. It's a short read, politics free (neither "bah, it's all a hoax!" nor "do this immediately or DIE!") and is definitely worth the time of anyone interested in the subject.