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The World's Largest Solar Farm Rises in the Remote Egyptian Desert (latimes.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: In 1913 on the outskirts of Cairo, an inventor from Philadelphia named Frank Shuman built the world's first solar thermal power station, using the abundant Egyptian sunshine to pump 6,000 gallons of water a minute from the Nile to irrigate a nearby cotton field. World War I and the discovery of cheap oil derailed Shuman's dream of replicating his "sun power plant" on a grand scale and eventually producing enough energy to challenge the world's dependence on coal.
More than a century later, that vision has been resurrected. The world's largest solar park, the $2.8-billion Benban complex, is set to open next year 400 miles south of Cairo in Egypt's Western Desert. It will single-handedly put Egypt on the clean energy map. That is no small feat for a country that's been hobbled by its longtime addiction to cheap, state-subsidized fossil fuels and currently gets more than 90% of its electricity from oil and natural gas. [...] The Benban complex, which will be operated by major energy companies from around the world, is expected to generate as much as 1.8 gigawatts of electricity, or enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. It will consist of 30 separate solar plants, the first of which began running in December, and employ 4,000 workers.
More than a century later, that vision has been resurrected. The world's largest solar park, the $2.8-billion Benban complex, is set to open next year 400 miles south of Cairo in Egypt's Western Desert. It will single-handedly put Egypt on the clean energy map. That is no small feat for a country that's been hobbled by its longtime addiction to cheap, state-subsidized fossil fuels and currently gets more than 90% of its electricity from oil and natural gas. [...] The Benban complex, which will be operated by major energy companies from around the world, is expected to generate as much as 1.8 gigawatts of electricity, or enough to power hundreds of thousands of homes and businesses. It will consist of 30 separate solar plants, the first of which began running in December, and employ 4,000 workers.
sure it will
So. they're going to get 1.8GW of the ~25GW they produce in total? For 12 hours per day, or less, of course.
That seems to translate to maybe 4% of their electricity production.
Color me unimpressed....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
n/t
>> World War I and the discovery of cheap oil derailed Shuman's dream of replicating his "sun power plant" on a grand scale
Also, ya know, physics. Not everyone has access to abundant sunshine, cheap natives and water within arm's reach.
>> Shuman's plant used parabolic troughs to power a 60-70 horsepower engine
Cool, so he was also a pioneer in "clean energy" frying birds as they flew. http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-solar-bird-deaths-20160831-snap-story.html
the pyramids were very large power plants and provided electricity to all people of EGYPT
Five miles from the Nile and twenty miles from Aswan may be remote, but Egypt has far, far more remote locations. Like Bugs Bunny remote.
- "But night!!"
- "But this won't immediately cover all electricity generation, so it's useless."
- "Nuclear is the only answer. Please ignore the multiple nuclear plants under construction that have been abandoned in multiple countries."
- "I suddenly really, really, really care about birds, yet have completely forgotten about harm to birds from pollution."
- "What we really need is a physically impossible electrical grid that covers (insert very large geographic area here)."
- Elon Musk is a hero or a villain.
- "My calculations based on retail power costs in a different place, as well as a massive overestimate of the maintenance costs, indicate this plant could never possibly be profitable."
Egypt also has a ton of wind turbines along the coast of the Red Sea, which I was surprised to learn. These are positive steps.
That said, Egypt is also in the process of opening not one, but three gas power plants totaling 14.4GW of new capacity, dwarfing their solar initiative.
I have friends who sell and install private solar in Egypt, but with grid power directly owned and subsidized by the state, it's hard to compete. Which is a shame, because Egypt's air pollution and AQI is right up there with India and China, and has only gotten worse over the past decade. Unfortunately the government seems about as keen to actually address air pollution as it does to support human rights, which is to say, not very much at all.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere
Solar power in a Desert country that is reasonably close to the equator where solar would make seance. What is next Geothermal energy in Greenland?
Bore through the Atlas Mountains to re-establish the inland sea that use to be there 6000 years ago. Would re-create rainfall in the western Sahara and add countless farming & fishing jobs.
They need to get on the phone with Elon Musk or at least someone who can provide them with energy storage to cover the surplus they'll generate during peak daylight hours.
So, the Egypt killing him part is speculation, but the head engineer of a $5 billion dam project being built on a Nile tributary in Ethiopia was recently found dead in his car in what looked suspiciously like a faked suicide. There's a lot of potential for big energy money in Northeast Africa right now, enough to make whichever state can harness it first a major geopolitical player.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
That's a nice list of predictions, here's mine: "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win."
Seems like you have a bit of underdog syndrome going there blindseer. Nuclear has been going since the 50's when it was "too cheap to meter" and received billions of dollars of taxpayer funded subsidies - and still does.
Nuclear Ideologists have been laughing at solar, wind and geothermal projects for the entire time. You're a prime example of someone fighting those visions of the future by attempting to hold us to a failing nuclear past.
You've ignored solar, laughed at solar and you've been fighting solar so that it won't win.
I see nuclear power has now finally gone beyond being ignored. Seems we're at the "laugh at you" stage now.
No one is laughing at Nuclear Power, it's a very serious matter that we have to deal with in our generation. It's an onerous responsibility forced upon us by the Cold war generation. Our responsibility is to deal with the radionuclide AND carbon legacy left to us by a generation that didn't know any better because we do know better.
That's why people are tired of all your bullshit, and that's why they're laughing at you. Your Nuclear Ideology is so completely absurd and divorced from reality that you've made it clear it's everyone else. Here's my list of why they laugh at you:
While all the greenies were concerned with oil and coal companies polluting the air and water by protesting against that in previous decades, the oil and coal companies manipulated pro-nukkers into attacking greenies while they destroyed IFR in its infancy. You concentrated on blaming people that may have been your allies if you you weren't so morally superior and dogmatically skeptical.
Whenever anyone tried to explain that to you pro-nukkers you instead concentrated on destroying them for asking intelligent questions that you had no answer for. When they went out and found the answers themselves the true nightmare of the effect of radionuclide contamination on the human genome became apparent and you pretend it doesn't happen. That's when everyone could see that you were Nuclear Ideologists, that your worldview is a political system based in social proof, rhetoric and a very dangerous lie.
Nuclear Ideology, it's the false reality too expensive to maintain.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Bore through the Atlas Mountains ...
Elon has this plan...
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
"It will single-handedly put Egypt on the clean energy map"
Right, because Aswan doesn't exist.
Much like the pyramids.. Government provides a job building something useful, while tens of thousands of people are otherwise unemployed and potentially getting into trouble.
This was paid for by a state guaranteed loan from Germany, which is never going to be paid back because Egypt won't stop being an economic basket case. Western governments are using loans as disguised foreign aid to prop up countries in a Malthusian trap ... trying to keep the status quo going for a bit longer. It's all going to come tumbling down, the only question is if there will be an Europe at the end of it or if we will join Africa and the Middle-East's descend into Anarchy.
I'm guessing we will, I'm also guessing the US and Israel have plans to sabotage/capture all nuclear material in Europe and the non Israeli Middle East for when it does happen. It would be silly not to have them.