I really want to be all over the new EU proposal to build a giant solar farm in the Sahara desert. It’s a pretty spectacular concept, both effective and relatively simple. You really could power most of the continent of Europe with just 1% of the Sahara, all clean and efficient. Using DC lines instead of AC is clever and the potential is really inspiring.
But, still- Africa? Again? How many times can a people return to the same colonial well?
It’s pretty gross in some ways, really. Europe, having the resources, can build these solar farms in Africa, and it’ll surely enrich some of the leaders in the countries they work in- it’ll probably also create jobs and opportunity for the people living there, as somebody’s gonna have to maintain all of this. But don’t you think, I dunno, Africans might want to power their own homes with their resources?
Since space isn’t a concern- remember, you’re only using 1% of the desert’s area for the EU project- it seems like the only way to do this without the same colonial overtones that have marred pretty much every European excursion to Africa would be for the leaders- prominently Prince Hassan of Jordan- to insist that they match the development of power generators for EU nations with the same for the African host countries. And without the same vast amount of distance to cover- building lines from Algeria to Algeria is a bit easier than building them from Chad to Sweden, you know?- it seems like it should be relatively inexpensive, at least compared to the cost of the European project.
I guess we’ll see where this goes. Prince Hassan has a reputation for being one of the more liberal Middle Eastern royals- so much so that he was passed over for the throne in favor of his nephew- and is a critic of leaders from his part of the world who use their people’s resources to buy weapons to fight Israel instead of bettering their conditions. But he is a businessman, and this is big business, so it’s hard to guess what’ll happen here.
8 responses so far ↓
1 m.s. // Jul 23, 2008 at 2:16 pm
Meh. I have come around to the conclusion that Solar Power is a waste of money. The intermittent nature of the power is way too problematic, and requires either some sort of massive energy storage scheme, or nearly as much power in traditionally generated back up power.
Also, where are they gonna get the huge volume of water that they’re going to need as coolant and steam? It’s the fuckin Sahara! And pumping millions of gallons of water out of the subsurface aquifer is not going to be popular with the people who, you know, need it to live.
I’m also a skeptic about the use of PV panels in the Sahara, unless they manage to overcome the heat problem (power generated drops off as the silicon gets hotter) which has the potential to vastly reduce the output of the plant.
Needless to say, I’m skeptical.
2 m.s. // Jul 23, 2008 at 2:17 pm
I should add that it’s a Waste of Money on these massive industrial scales where it is intended as a primary power source. As a secondary source, on the roofs of buildings, contributing to the grid, or in unwired areas, it makes much more sense.
3 admin // Jul 23, 2008 at 3:51 pm
Have you seen this? It looks like solar technology is coming a pretty long way, but I am not very smart about science stuff, so I could be way off.
–d
4 m.s. // Jul 25, 2008 at 12:57 am
No, i haven’t. That’s a pretty novel and awesome application, actually. It’ll be great for use on large buildings, etc, and it helps address the cooling issue, fo’ sho.
There’s lots of great advances on the verge of industrialization: silicon free solar cells that don’t became less efficient when they get hot, dye based systems, thin film systems, paint on solar cells… all kinds of crazy shit.
But none of them eliminate the fact that you can’t generate power when the sun don’t shine, and that you still need large volumes of land (and water, all powerplants use it) to generate a lot of power from solar. It’s an awesome secondary power generating technology that can be a big help solving a lot of problems, but we shouldn’t try and use it as a primary power source.
There are awesome, safe, clean, and easy(ish) to build nuclear designs waiting in the wings, that could totally save our butts. But that, my man, is not a rant for your site. Unless you want me to write one. Then okay.
5 admin // Jul 25, 2008 at 1:09 am
Absolutely I want you to write one. Teach me useful things about science, and I will put it on the main page so all forty-four of my readers who aren’t you can learn with me.
–d
6 admin // Jul 25, 2008 at 1:28 am
Also, would the sunlight issue be mitigated by the fact that it’s in the Sahara? There’s work underway to do a similar project in the Mojave, I understand, which doesn’t have quite the same conditions, but you’d think sunshine in the Sahara is a fairly safe bet, right?
What do you think of wind power? Same problem?
–d
7 m.s. // Jul 29, 2008 at 1:43 am
Hmm. Okay. I’ll write a thing.
Though, honestly, I could mostly just point you at links. Other people have already gone to great lengths to discuss new forms of nuclear power. But I can put a thing together. Maybe even tonight!
8 [guest post: the fury of science!] | dansolomon.com // Jul 29, 2008 at 2:15 pm
[...] it out of the way, I’m not Dan. I’m a guy Dan knows. You may recall a while back, Dan posted an entry about the EU’s proposed Saharan Desert solar power generation [...]
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