Out of Africa: Saharan Solar Energy

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1872110_1872133_1872141,00.html

Out of Africa: Saharan Solar Energy

By VIVIENNE WALT

Take off from almost any city in Europe and head south across the Mediterranean, and you will notice a dramatic shift in the light within an hour or two. An angled brightness pierces the windows as passengers peel off sweaters and jackets. Then for the next four or five hours you can gaze out at the forbidding landscape below: a sweltering expanse of yellow sand and rock roughly double the size of Western Europe but almost totally devoid of buildings, roads and people. You are looking at the world's biggest desert.

For years the Sahara has been regarded by many Europeans as a terra incognita of little economic value or importance. But this perception may be headed for a drastic overhaul. Politicians and scientists on both sides of the Med are beginning to focus on the Sahara's potential to power Europe for centuries to come. These people believe the 3.32 million-sq.-mi. (8.6 million sq km) desert's true worth lies in the very thing long regarded as its biggest liability: its arid emptiness. Some patches of the Sahara reach 113 degrees F (45 degrees C) on many afternoons. It is, in other words, a gigantic natural storehouse of solar energy.

A few years ago, scientists began to calculate just how much energy the Sahara holds. They were astounded at the answer. In theory, a 35,000-sq.-mi. (90,600 sq km) chunk of the Sahara — smaller than Portugal and a little over 1% of its total area — could yield the same amount of electricity as all the world's power plants combined. A smaller square of 6,000 sq. mi. (15,500 sq km) — about the size of Connecticut — could provide electricity for Europe's 500 million people. "I admit I was skeptical until I did the calculations myself," says Michael Pawlyn, director of Exploration Architecture, one of three British environmental companies comprising the Sahara Forest Project, which is testing solar plants in Oman and the United Arab Emirates. Pawlyn calls the Sahara's potential "staggering."

At this point, no one is proposing the creation of a solar power station the size of a small country. But a relatively well developed technology exists, which proponents say could turn the Sahara's heat and sunlight into a major electrical source — concentrating solar power (CSP). Unlike solar panels, which convert sunlight directly into electricity, CSP utilizes mirrors to focus light on water pipes or boilers, generating superheated steam to operate the turbines of generators. Small CSP plants have produced power in California's Mojave Desert since the 1980s. The Sahara Forest Project proposes building CSP plants below sea level (the Sahara has several such depressions) so that seawater can flow into them and be condensed into distilled water for powering turbines and washing dust off the mirrors. Wastewater would be used to irrigate areas around the stations, creating lush oases — hence the forest in the group's name.

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[Maestro]

1. Very interesting....

That is a lot of potential energy. I hope they keep investigating this.

[panader0]

2. I gotta rec this. The solutions to our energy crises exists.

[Ghost Dog]

3. Yes, this will be done. And long-distance DC power lines will

feed the electrical energy into and across Europe.

See this report from Wednesday 23 July 2008: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/jul/23/solarpower.windpower