JUN 22

Wow - is it me, or is this one of the few times you ever here of a government being ahead of schedule on a major renewable energy project. very impressive.

The first phase of projects will have a capacity in the hundreds of megawatts, while over the next 20 to 40 years, the capacity will reach hundreds of gigawatts.

I wonder how many wars are going to be fought over access to Saharan solar resources in the future. The history of hydrocarbon resource extraction indicates that it is probably going to happen.

This is exceptional. One could only hope America wakes up the diminishing fossil fuel situation, and expedites our green getaway. I'm wondering the same about "wars" being fought over this energy... but there is one major difference. This energy is seen as renewing. Where as hydrocarbon (and it's history) are and always have been... a depleting resource.

wonder how many wars are going to be fought over access to Saharan solar resources in the future. The history of hydrocarbon resource extraction indicates that it is probably going to happen.

Given that solar energy is available anywhere the sun shines, I don't think there is a parallel with petroleum resources.

Fwiw, I think it is better to fight over cleaner energy than oil but I do agree I can see fighting as usual - I think the ideal is localized alternative energy (solar panels on your bldg to power your bldg)

@Matt: war wouldn't be necessary: with the current generation of solar power panels, an area of about 50,000 square km would suffice to meet the global power usage. That's less than 1% of the sahara area. So I there is any need for a turf war

It's a win win situation. North Africa gets access to high technology and electricity, Europe gets clean power and the planet gets a breather! My only slight worry: does anyone know what the affect of these massive direct current power cables will have on the magnetic field of the planet? Could it affect migrating birds or worse?

this is a fantastic development and clearly the right step towards a globally sustainable energy future. But what worries me is that this smacks of another instance where Europe or the West soaks Africa for resources. The article does say that African nations will be serviced - but it's almost an afterthought. There are likely millions of people in Africa without access to electricity - why not invest in helping communities make the technological leap from no electricity directly to renewable electricity?

It just seems like the focus of this great project to tap into African resources really should be on Africa. This article makes it sound like it's all for Europe.

hey Piers ! you might transmit huge amount of power using HF direct current, maybe the cables could be shielded ? (some not so expensive technique)

Southern europe would be just fine for electricity generation. I don't understand why the sahara ? PV panels are actually LESS efficient in higher temperatures. Add to that the transmission losses (should be significant) and it sounds like an expensive plan. Would be better to just cover every roof with pv. no losses in transport.

No. Electromagnetic fields fall off at a rate of the square of the distance from it. Translation, they get weak fast. The birds would be fine.

written by Piers Headley, June 23, 2010
It's a win win situation. North Africa gets access to high technology and electricity, Europe gets clean power and the planet gets a breather! My only slight worry: does anyone know what the affect of these massive direct current power cables will have on the magnetic field of the planet? Could it affect migrating birds or worse?

is Saudi Arabia being exploited for selling it's oil? Is Australia being exploited for selling it's coal? Beyond all of that, notice that only 1% of the Sahara would supply all of Europe's power needs. I think there is plenty of room for a few more cells for the "home" country's power usage.


why is Europe in the headline?
written by oshilig, June 23, 2010
this is a fantastic development and clearly the right step towards a globally sustainable energy future. But what worries me is that this smacks of another instance where Europe or the West soaks Africa for resources. The article does say that African nations will be serviced - but it's almost an afterthought. There are likely millions of people in Africa without access to electricity - why not invest in helping communities make the technological leap from no electricity directly to renewable electricity?

It just seems like the focus of this great project to tap into African resources really should be on Africa. This article makes it sound like it's all for Europe.

The thing that this does not address is that almost everything we buy is made using oil one way or another even if you take the energy out of the equation. Oil is used as a lubricant in the machines. All plastics are made from oil. Toothpaste, paint, shampoo, car tires etc, etc, etc. The list goes on and there is no replacement for it as of this time

Plastics can be made from any bulk source of raw chemical materials, it doesn't have to be oil. It is an accident of history that we have been using oil to create plastics.

Oil is just a complex arrangement of hydrogen and carbon atoms, it can be manufactured from pure air, (but you do need a huge amount of energy to do it). How do you think the massive clouds of hydrocarbons in interstellar space occurred? Oil reserves on Earth are not the product of dead dinosaurs and ancient vegetation. Most oil is abiotic and consequently our oil reservoirs will eventually replenish themselves over time if we stop extracting it for energy.

Nuclear fusion while not practical today, will be practical in the not so distant future (within 25 years). Nuclear fusion is really the only hope we have of being able to produce the energy that human society is going to need in the future. The current developments in re-usable energy technologies (solar, wind, wave etc) are very primitive and they in turn are going to present us with massive environmental problems as our population increases. Already, energy production is competing with food production for land use.

Our only practical hope is nuclear fusion, otherwise humans are doomed. In fact, it doesn't really matter if humans vanish from the planet, it is only our anthropocentric thinking which causes us to think we are special. Given enough time (which is something that Earth has plenty of) another sentient species will probably evolve. It really doesn't even matter if another sentient species doesn't re-evolve on Earth since there are innumerable other planetary systems in the universe.

Yes there are a million uses in our everyday lives for petroleum, packaging lubes tires medicines clothing shoes carpet flooring etc etc etc BUT if we could stop using it to produce our electricity we could save an incredible amount of oil to be used to make those other products. THEN if we can reduce or (one can hope) replace gas and diesel as fuel in our cars and trucks the amount we could save of the oil we need in to the future would be phenomenal. Then if we could retool our freight transport to be much more effecient in the use of fuels to move the products we need to the places we need them we could save even more of the very limited and non renewable fuel/oil. FINALLY there would be many many results of this redirection in our use of fossil fuels the least of which will be a huge manufacturing boom in the development and manufacture of the alternative energy vehicles and power producers. And we would see a more balanced atmosphere and the benefits of that are worth all of the effort alone.

Increasing temperatures through releasing energy from matter (burn oil etc) leads to less rain leads to less vegetation leads eventually to creating a desert. The process feeds on itself. When you reverse one of these processes, it feeds on itself too, but in the opposite direction. Reducing the temperature in an area even by just a faction of a degree overall and ongoing is all it takes to make it rain. This grows more vegetation which makes the area cooler which... It won't start at the centre of the desert, it will start from the edge and work its way in. It's a case of exponential growth, and in the case of massive solar energy projects in the desert, the outcome should be welcomed by all. The limiting factor is the level of vegetation that eventually surrounds the project which will effectively compete for the suns energy. Providing that investors get good returns by this stage it sounds like a winner to me.

Nice to see it's ahead of schedule to get off our oil addiction but if humans really want to live happily on the planet FOREVER we need to stop populating the place.

Hi, Oshilig, the article tells us that the EU and private European businesses are funding the solar power network installation Desertec, therefore they get a "sponsor credit". I'm sure they will get a terrific return on their investment.

Indeed, solar power from the sahara is one of the option. However, there will be 3 issues. the first one is the environmental impact, how the absorption of heat from PV will reduce the warm air draft from the south to the europe, and in turns, during the winter of europe, "colder" warm air cannot warm the surrounding, which makes europe colder, and in turn increases the electricity power consumption for heating. Secondly, is the material cost, which solar panel requires a material silicon which have high cost during production. this project will be so expensive, unless backed with strong finance, it is unlikely to happen considering europe union still have problem with their finance with the PIGS. thirdly is more political, assuming that the project is fully developed, inequality will occur between the northern part and the middle part of Africa, and with the existing civil wars, especially in the middle portion of africa, may pose threat on the service of solar power. Furthermore, due to historical reasons, if war or political viewpoint arise between the europe and countries, such as egypt, in the sahara, there will likely pose threat to the solar power services if europe countries rely heavily on the solar panels.

Most I like is the fact that such a large project will reduce the cost of PV equipment!

However, the transfer of energy from such a distance has huge losses. I think that the energy produced in Africa will be too expensive in Europe.

My guess is that mirror farms will concentrate solar energy to heat water for steam to generate electricity, rather than use PV cells. PV is not very efficient. The heat generated by the cells is lost to the environment instead of being reflected back into space by the light colored soil/sand. If you could get 15% of the incident energy by PV, the other 85% would be absorbed by the dark panel materials and get dissipated into the air instead of reflected.

Why not fund and develop such super sized solar systems in the above mentioned countries?

Ok they don't have such extreme hot weather conditions as you see in Sahara but, they are members of the EU meaning they are better controlled and dependent, they do have big domestic financial problems and export energy to EU could be a great source of extra revenue and balancing their trade accounts and too many other things which could further strengthen their candinancy.

There is already a WAR going on there: A good part of Sahara was occupied by Morocco in 1975, (a country where the king has to have a good share of any business, otherwise there is no business), a war went on for some 15 - 20 years and the situation is of unrest to say the least. War can resume at any time, UN resolutions are ignored by Morocco

Sahara has serious reserves of phosphate inland and of fishing areas on the sea, and that already causes problems in the relations between Morocco and the EU.

Finally, there is serious ecological oposition to the power cables crossing between Africa and Europe.

Anyway, despite all that, it can be good in the long term both for Sahara, Morocco and the rest of the world...

When people without morals use junkscience to get money from people with more money than wisdom. Sadly, your tax money will be going to them.
The sheep support the criminals by saying "yeah solar!"