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Saharan sun's solar power could provide Europe's electricity

guardian.co.uk — Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission's Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe's energy needs.

Who dugg this? Made popular Jul 23, 2008

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  • cph1, on 07/23/2008, -4/+30"...it could produce 100 GW, more than the combined electricity output from all sources in the UK, with an investment of around €450bn"

    so for less than the cost of the iraq war we could have converted all of Europe to solar power...

    what a sad world we live in
  • geekmansworld, on 07/23/2008, -1/+24To: North Africa

    1. Build solar power stations
    2. Kick old grudges to the curb
    3. ??????
    4. Profit!
  • Kalior, on 07/23/2008, -5/+26It's really sad that political and regional tensions will keep this from ever happening
  • brettg102, on 07/23/2008, -2/+18"More than all the sources in the UK"...UK does NOT equal EU.
  • Warom, on 07/23/2008, -4/+18If 0.3% could power europe wouldn't that mean about 0.05% would be required to power africa. Imagine if all of Africa could have electricity. They could have electric water pumps which would lead to better irrigation and more crops. More advanced hospitals could be set up. In my opinion supplying Africa with electricity would be far better than for Europe as it would be easier, cheaper and have a greater impact on peoples lives.
  • TxAggie08, on 07/23/2008, -0/+14Because there are an infinite number of really good things a person like Gates could do to help the world; he has chosen poverty as his battle.
  • Rodalli, on 07/23/2008, -3/+16I can't wait for this!

    Imagine it: you're out in the Sahara in your sandpeople fatigues working on repairing this coupling for one of the solar panels. The wind is blowing, one of your coworkers is busily trying to clear a encroaching dune away from nearby panel, when suddenly...SANDWORM!

    Oh my god, brain aneurysm!
  • tnoy, on 07/23/2008, -0/+12Bill Gates is too busy with more important things, like trying to cure 3rd-world nations from things like malaria.
  • TJ11240, on 07/23/2008, -1/+12I agree. Its truly a shame that these poorer nations are missing out on such an abundant source of energy. Imagine how much the standard of living would increase if they started exporting clean electricity.
  • Jibberwalk, on 07/23/2008, -0/+10The problem arises when you have to build the infrastructure to deliver the solar energy to the rest of Africa. It's expensive, and is one of the primary reasons even wealthy states like the US hasn't been able to build wind farms in the plains. The amount of resources required to cover such vast amounts of land with the necessary equipment is daunting.

    Not only is the cost prohibitive, relying on funds the non-unified African countries don't have... but the constant filling and shifting of power in the African nations makes it difficult to ensure the necessary upkeep of the infrastructure facilities/lines.
  • inactive, on 07/23/2008, -1/+10negative. You still have to build the infrastructure to every single town, city and house. Africa can't afford it.
  • Petrarch1603, on 07/23/2008, -2/+10like its that easy to capture .3% of the sunlight on the sahara. Hell let's just build a dyson spere around the sun while we're living in fantasyland
  • localzuk, on 07/23/2008, -1/+7Geography isn't your strongest subject is it?
  • Stormwern, on 07/23/2008, -1/+7Should point out that 0.3% of an area as big as europe itself is still pretty darn big. Still, great that there's virtually unlimited energy to be had if we really go for it.
  • cph1, on 07/23/2008, -0/+6I know, misread the initials.
    Either way the idea is the same.
  • khulbert, on 07/23/2008, -1/+6"Energy losses on DC lines are far lower than on the traditional AC ones, which make transmission of energy over long distances uneconomic."

    As a physics person I'm a little confused. Power = (current)^2 x resistance , so to minimize the power loss in transmission lines you would want to want to have them at high voltage and low current. The reason AC lines are used for long distance transmission is because you can use magnetic induction to make transformers that step up the voltage, you cannot do this with DC lines.
  • BossKey, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5On top of that, based on some articles I've been reading, I wonder if a massive solar installation out in the middle of nowhere would look like a gold mine to those roving bands of metal thieves.
  • PabloMac, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5They could if they sell energy, and corrupt governments and warlords don't...

    Well, never mind.
  • geekmansworld, on 07/23/2008, -1/+6Actually, if we see some traction on this "Mediterranean Union" that's being batted around lately, solar power export might not be so unrealistic.
  • brettg102, on 07/23/2008, -1/+6Has noone thought of the constantly blowing erosive sands affecting everything out there? Or the constantly shifting dunes that make building a permanent installation nearly impossible?
  • chr00t, on 07/23/2008, -1/+6The same was said of Ireland and the IRA
  • bmdt2000, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5Although 10k sq miles is extremely large, I'm sure that they took the efficiency into account when coming up with this number, so there is no need to multiple the 10k by 4.
  • SQLserver, on 07/23/2008, -4/+8I never could figure out why some rich guy like Bill Gates, or the head of an energy company didn't just buy a huge lot of land in the Sahara dirt cheap, and make a huge solar plant.
  • Uiaccsk, on 07/23/2008, -1/+5thats hardly the point.
  • waydee, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4The EU has a good relationship with Morocco, theres no reason why politics should stop this happening nor is Morocco in the midsts of "regional tensions" as you put it - this is North Africa we're talking about, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia...


  • localzuk, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4They get paid for it... That sort of installation would create thousands of jobs (probably 10's of thousands), easily.
  • Uiaccsk, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4STOP FEAR MONGERING!

    have some friggin hope in people.
  • localzuk, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4Please look at an atlas... The middle east only contains a small amount of the Sahara... It is 3.5million square miles in size, stretching from the Atlantic ocean on the west coast of northern africa to the red sea in the east.
  • jmpeagle, on 07/23/2008, -1/+4you mean all Europe has to do is reconfigure their entire electrical grid and switch to DC transmission to get solar energy across the mediterranean...why it is so SIMPLE
  • Uiaccsk, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3we should just stop building anything that might help people, because other people might blow it up. What kind of way is that to live?
  • davdev, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3Underwater cables avoid a major obstacle that floating platforms would not be able to... Storms!

    A big ass hurricane forming off Africa could wipe out those floating islands pretty quickly
  • morg666, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3The Middle East is already exporting energy in the form of oil. It hasn't helped the general populace's standard of living. Unfortunately, I don't imagine clean energy will either.
  • Daxx22, on 07/23/2008, -1/+3"2. Kick old grudges to the curb"

    Yeah, thats the impossible part. Those regions have been in conflict for so long there is no other way for them.
  • polychrome, on 07/23/2008, -2/+4There have long been power alternatives. Finally things are beginning to move in this field. I just hope they will move quickly enough.
  • nuno86, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2lol... actually it is. after this i just remembered sahara is in Africa. but then this comment couldnt be edited or deleted, so yeah, i deserve to be buried.
  • BossKey, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2The problem with your theory is that it will be the worlds LARGEST terrorist target. It would be much harder to take out acres and acres of panels than it would be to take down a single airplane or a couple of buildings on a single block.

    Much easier to blow up an oil refinery.
  • nullcodes, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2umm it isnt exploitation cause they would be getting nothing if it wasnt there, whereas now they will be getting paid for leasing out the land so they may even be able to build another one of these for themselves not to mention get somemoney towards building critical infrastructure like hospitals, roads etc.
  • ChayD, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2...plus this is a CSP site, so they're probably using a heliostat array to focus all the light onto some sort of steam generator to run turbines, I would guess.
  • sndream, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Even ignoring energy loss and money. Powering the whole Europe with solar panel from Saharan is just infeasible, England alone use near 100GW, how many transmission tower do you need?
    The power line will be needed to drag across multiple countries, even with redundancy route, the chance of the entire electricity grid got knock out is way too high.

    Remember how half of North America plunge into darkness like 5 to 6 yrs ago? That's only power plant scattered around NA linked together, now imaging all of the power come from 1 place. @_@ The risk is so high that it make Space solar array with microwave transmission sound like eating cake.

  • davdev, on 07/23/2008, -1/+3Europe had some pretty old grudges right up until WWII and they came together.
  • waydee, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Who's to say the country where this is situated won't be able to draw power from it?

    We're also talking about Northern African countries here, not the ***** Congo - travel some time and you'll see that Morocco, North Algeria and Tunisia are the locations where this would be situated, they've got adequate infrastructure already and I'm sure would welcome the foreign investment, jobs and energy this would provide.

  • waydee, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1This is about establishing a grid within Europe that draws power from a number of renewable sources - from Geothermal, Wind and Solar across the continent, EU member states and this project proposed for Northern Africa.
  • jmpeagle, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1you can't transmit electricity through water via AC, it has to be DC
  • waydee, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Their plan is to use DC transmission, less than 1% loss over 1000km with modern equipment as the last article (which made the front page) posted today explained.

  • Nudar, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1dear bincoder,

    where do you think all the citizens of africa and the middle east are moving to? if they don't take the african solar back then they'll eventually take the wind power in europe.
  • bincoder, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Thats trading one dependancy on the middle east (oil) for another one (solar).
    How is that going to help Europe?
    Citizens of Africa and the middle east may have other uses for that energy than sending it off to Europe if not today, then tommorow.
    Europe should press harder for wind power. If its all located in Europe, nobody can simply take it all away or cut it off like they seem to be so fond of doing with oil.
  • DrJG, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1A lot of above comments have got the point - the land is in Africa belongs not to Europe or west and new colonialism won't wash, and buying is not the solution, but there is enough space empty in Spain that will do for Europe and finally Spain can pay back the subsidies it has had for the years being in Europe - of course Spain was used badly by most powers before wwII so they can rightly refuse to pay back subsidies and insist on selling the energy and do well for once. As for Africa they could use their own solar energy production and sell overflow to whosoever.

    And Russia has plenty of land and some with sun, some with wind and waves and tides, so they can do well for once too.
  • beauley, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1With Global Warming on many people's minds, do we have any ideas of the best way to lessen the impact on our future, or maybe a possible relief of its possible ravages or even a possible key to its eventual reversal. Many scientific experts have proposed
    http://www.quazen.com/Science/Technology/Solar-Pow ...
    Solar Power: Source of Endless Energy
  • Aliwalla, on 07/23/2008, -3/+4Wow. I really can't believe it took them this long to figure out. Europe could be powered by this, wind power and wave power alone... if it wasn't for the Nuclear Lobby.
  • jei731, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Wouldn't it be more efficient and secure to dam the Mediterranean. This would provide hundreds of terawatts of power.
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