Sahara-Powered Solar Power -Europe's Answer?

Once a year some concerned scientists will say "Wait a minute, the Sahara desert is, like, really sunny!" and declare that pollution is at an end.  This time it's the Austrian International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, talking to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference.

The first part of the principle is sound: there really is an awful lot of sunlight in the Sahara, and while you'd have to cover an area the size of a small country to power another country, there's even more desert to go round.  The problem is that it's always been easier to produce power than to transport it, and cable connections between Africa and Europe (which the scheme intends) capable of carrying the titanic power loads are no trivial task.

As technology progresses, there is no doubt at all that this project will become feasible - it just hasn't, yet.  The outlined budget calls for an investment of seventy billion dollars, and you might as well ask for unicorns to ride to the power plant and an army of Heidi Klum clones to sexily wash dust off the panels.  The National Ignition Facility only cost five billion, and it's been an immense struggle against committees, cuts and cost overruns.  If you can build a miracle power system for seventy billion dollars, then you just can't build a miracle power system.

Not to mention the social screw-up factor: you tell people that you can provide limitless free power, and they'll say "Cool, as long as it doesn't inconvenience me in the slightest way."  Whatever power-distribution grid they set up would become a relief map of lawsuits, entire counties signing off on the "We would rather burn dead animals for power than have a trunk cable where we can see it."

Solar power will be revolutionary, and it's nearly ready.  But when your pollution-free plan begins with "Okay, I'll need the entire gross domestic product of Mongolia.  For a decade", you may need a little more research.

Posted by Luke McKinney

Sahara Solar http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article5887597.ece

Comments

[Mark]

Uh, excuse me. Forgetting the immense sand storms that would stop this idea cold, the Sahara borders ARAB countries. If anyone in their right mind thinks Muslim countries are going to go along with 21st century thinking (Dubai excluded, excuse me) and allow Europe to draw electricity off THEIR grid, they're not thinking correctly.

Once the Taliban finds out about this, kiss the entire idea goodbye.

[KS]

The arabs are controlling the world oil production at the moment. Only the type of evergy would change in this scenario, so why would that be a problem? In fact this would give the arab countries a nice way to continue their energy business when the oil runs out.

[Pindar]

The problem with clean energy is that unless it is produced for consumption by entities in the immediate area, the impact of constructing a suitable conduiting from origin to destination will have an equally negative impact on the environment. It is not as though you can bottle or box up electricity and put it into a container for shipping.

Windfarms are a classic example. Firstly the windmills are a unsightly blot on what might be a wonderful pastoral scene, and then the under- or above ground network of high voltage cabling is just as devistating as the existing conventional network, not to mention being a terrible nuisance when things go wrong.

The only solution is for solar power to be saved in situ, and the primary need is for the population of the planet to be sythed right down to a managable size, so that demands on recourses becomes reasonable once more.

Soon there will be no Planet Earth for humans to breed on and further destroy, and in my opinion the Chinese have a very good system of one child per couple, however harsh that may seem.

[Saudi]

Irriget the Sahara first,

http://www.saudisolutions.org/

[Des]

Thank God there is a space-based solar power project being worked on right now in the USA which involves electric power being beamed down to rectennae in many international locations.

The important question is, will there be enough time left for us to get such a system in operation before we manage to wreck the world around us?

[Zac Trolley]

Why do people get upset when they look at power generation?
@KS you say that windmills "are a unsightly blot on what might be a wonderful pastoral scene"

Really? Progress to you is unsightly? The human race harnessing the elements is destroying a pastoral scene for you? Awww, muffin.

Next time you walk by an open coal mine, oil refinery, tar sands project or nuclear waste dump, see if that scene makes you feel all warm inside.

Every time you see clean power generation, or someone reaching for something better, you should feel proud that your fellow earth inhabitant is putting the effort to make everyone's life better. Let's put solar panels in the Sahara, tidal power on the cost of the UK and geothermal power on fault lines.