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See the original image at guardian.co.uk

Vast Farms of Desert Solar Panels Could Power All of Europe

guardian.co.uk — Vast farms of solar panels in the Sahara desert could provide clean electricity for the whole of Europe, according to EU scientists working on a plan to pool the region's renewable energy. Harnessing the power of the desert sun is at the centre of ambitious scheme to build a €45bn European supergrid to share electricity across the continent.

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  • rhuarch, on 07/22/2008, -24/+26Wow, that's great for Africa... I don't see how Europe has any business monopolizing another one of Africa's resources for export while most of the continent languishes in squalor. I can just see the conversation now:

    Euro: "Hey there, nice desert. You know we've realized that all this desert would be very useful for cheap clean energy."

    African: "I'm sorry what did you say? I was too busy trying to eat and dodging bullets from the latest uprising to catch all that."

    Euro: "Cool, since no one seems to be using it do you mind if we just claim all this open desert and use it to power our 1st world life styles back in Europe?"

    African: (pauses in the struggle to survive) "What about us? All that clean energy might go a long way in helping us develop infrastructure and stabilize our governments. Why don't you help us harness the energy and then we'll sell you the excess when we become more prosperous."

    Euro: "Yeah, I think we both know it really doesn't work that way, but I tell you what; we'll throw you a bone. We'll go ahead and exploit your continent pretty much the way we always have and and hire local people to work at ridiculously low wages, then we'll use the extra money we save on labor to fund the five nicest warlords we can find. We'll give each of them a year to build a following, and then they can fight amongst themselves for the right to sell us all the rest of your natural resources. We'll film the whole thing and turn it into a reality TV series called The Nightly News. See? It's win win for everybody!"

    African: "Sure, as long as your not African. How is this even new? This is exactly the deal you cut when you wanted our Ivory, then later when you wanted our diamonds, then our oil, and now your telling me you want our sunlight too? Give me a f'ing break."

    Euro: "Well, now your just being unreasonable. I don't understand how you could possibly hate us so much that you would want us to sacrifice our life style and give up all your cheaply exploited natural resources. And after all the nice things we've said about Africa over the years..."
    • Steinr, on 07/23/2008, -3/+5nicely put. this is how it goes although not quite as stark.
    • waydee, on 07/23/2008, -0/+14Or how about the owners of the land that this is placed on get fair reimbursement for the use of their land?
      Or even a cut of the power generated?

      Think about what you're saying, how exactly does investment and development of infrastructure in Africa harm the continent? Do you seriously think the EU of all political unions would get away with enslaving Africans to toil in their vast electricity fields?


    • subtle, on 07/23/2008, -0/+7you're
    • stonedthot, on 07/23/2008, -0/+13 "it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle Eastern deserts to provide all of Europe's energy needs." I'm pretty sure a lot of Northern African countries would happily rent some of their currently completely unused deserts to Europe. Its hardly "monopolising" a resource when the resource is the ***** sun.

      And stop patronising Africa and lumping all the countries in the continent together. Tunisia and Morocco for example are closer to Greece or Spain in culture than they are to sub-Saharan countries such as Zimbabwe or the Congo. A small sea separates Southern Europe from North Africa which has historically been a far less impassable barrier than the Saharan desert.

      This isn't the 19th century so stop acting all indignant, pretending Europe's "colonial" nature is springing up again. This would be a mutually beneficial plan for Europe, Northern Africa and ultimately the world.
      • philhatesyou, on 07/23/2008, -2/+1Sorry, but Tunisia and Morocco are more like Egypt or Libya than they are Greece or Spain. The population in both countries is predominantly Muslim.
      • stonedthot, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1The comparison was between North African countries and sub-Saharan Africa/Southern Europe. Hence the use of terms like "for example" and "such as". Understand the point someone is making before criticising it.
    • SpacePoet, on 07/23/2008, -0/+5We could do this to the Mexicans.... hmmm *get's chalkboard
  • hiPpymIck, on 07/23/2008, -1/+7solar thermal might be better
    you can easily and efficiently store the heat generated to cover a 24hr cycle

    so no need for expensive batteries


    similarly
    im really liking the idea of a european supergrid
    FTA
    "He said that the proposed grid was a way to balance out the intermittencies of renewable energy:
    "If you can connect the grid to hydro power, you've got that as a backup battery, and in addition there's wind.
    It's not a single source that's providing the energy but a combination of the different renewable energies."
    also
    "Modern HVDC cables can keep energy losses down to around 3% per 1,000km."

    so
    with distance no object and a variety of sources this could get rid of the idea that we might be 'forced' to build nuclear to guarantee a constant supply
    i like the idea of clean renewables not being the 'poor relations' theyre sometimes portayed as


    i think Europe should have a friendly contest with the Americans (..and maybe others)
    - wholl be first to reach 100% clean and cheap energy -Al Gore or us
    • arjie, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1I was reading an article on Slashdot yesterday where someone suggested the same thing. Others mentioned that we can store heat more efficiently than electricity and you said that too, sort of. How exactly do you mean?
    • idbjoshm, on 07/23/2008, -1/+2I think us Americans are actually considering building massive solar energy plants across the vast Mojave desert. At the moment, however, there is a 2-year moratorium against building any new solar plants to research the affects of such plants on the environment. I know a lot of diggers finds this to be very suspicious, Solar Energy is not as "environmentally clean" as we would like it to be. The creation of solar cells and use of various metals has some environmental impact.

      It also takes far more space to create the same energy from a solar plant than a more traditional power plant (oil, coal, natural gas) creates. For example, if the USA switched entirely to solar energy, it would require creating a Solar Cell roughly the size of Manhattan island to collect that energy, in addition to thousands of square miles of substations and electric wire surrounding such a cell to convert the energy into usable electricity. While there is little to no carbon emissions, a large physical footprint the size of a major city is still smack in the middle of the Mojave displacing hundreds if not thousands of species of wildlife and vegetation. Unlike the Sahara, which is mostly barren sand dunes, the mojave actually has life.

      The last point we should understand is that humanity doesn't store energy in large amounts, and presently, we create the majority of the electricity as we need it. If Edison had his way, then batteries would have been the standard, and thus better ways of energy storage, However it was Tesla's idea of moving vast amounts of energy long distances that won out over Edison's model. Unlike the tradition methods of harvesting energy, you cant turn off the sun and it is impractical to cover the massive solar cells if you don't need energy. The present battery technology is not enough to support the surplus energy created by the solar plants.

      All that being said, I am all for a more efficient fuel source, and what better source than our own sun. It is indeed clean, and we have all the energy we need with almost no detrimental impact to the environment. The only problem is feasability and our present technological capacity. I think, the practical method right now is not extensive solar plants to power entire cities, but instead for individual homes and business across the country (and the globe) to buy a solar cell for their own needs, especially those who prefer to live out in American Southwest and other parts of the world where desert is the dominant ecosystem. Here is hoping that solar cells become cheap enough that the average home and business can in fact afford to buy enough cells for their needs.

      Solar-Wind-Nuclear. That is the trifecta of clean usable energy.
      • Acceptableloss, on 07/23/2008, -1/+1Couldn't have said it better.

        Solar-Wind-Nuclear

        A combination of the 3 is the way to go. No one is perfect, but the three can cover each other's weaknesses.
      • sk11, on 07/23/2008, -1/+1I don't think space is an issue, It's not like the US is some tiny little speck, it's actually one of the largest countries on the planet. If small, densely populated countries like Spain are happy to build solar plants, why should America go without?

        Environmental impact on a desert, do you know how many species reside in oceans which we pour fossil fuel waste into? Oil, coal and gas don't exactly have a good effect and impact on the environment, they don't produce happy rainbow clouds. Solar and wind are cleaner by far.

        Storage is not a problem with solar thermal plants, and peak time usage is guess when, that's right, during the day when it's sunny in the desert. Night time usage isn't as high as the day time. Thin film solar cells work well in low light conditions anyway, as evidenced in Germany.
    • sk11, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1A clean energy race? Everyone knows Europe would beat America without a bead of sweat. :P
  • zadadka, on 07/23/2008, -2/+4Unfortunately, some of the metals necessary for creating solar panels are dwindling, and there's certainly not enough to provide for such a large scale project ... so this won't come to fruition.
    • kylere, on 07/23/2008, -1/+3Handy thing is that for less than 25 billion (which is about the cost of the Mortgage Crisis bailout in the US) we could pull an asteroid from the belt into orbit and mine it for needed materials.
      • Logicexe, on 07/23/2008, -2/+2No, you're not even within the same order of magnitude of how much it would cost to do something that big.

        We're still trying to figure out a good way to get to Mars and back and you want to go even further and hitch an asteroid to your spacecraft? Not going to happen within our lifetimes.
      • SpacePoet, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1There's no oil on an asteroid. Other materials, sure, but their not going to power your car, and we can just rape the earth for more metals for now...
      • kylere, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2Logicexe, I challenge you to prove me wrong. It could be done on the cheap with robotic craft, and the total cost would be much LESS than 25 billion. Not every mission has to be a manned one with big shiny white spacecraft. Niven and Pournelle have worked out the math several times, and it is just NOT that hard.
      • Logicexe, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2It's not about whether it needs to be manned or not, obviously it could be robotic. What's expensive here is the energy cost. It takes a lot of energy to move stuff through space. Sure, you can input a little energy if you're patient enough to wait 100s of year before it moves close to the Earth but who wants to wait that long when we need the stuff now?

        In the end it comes down to F=MA. In order to move something as massive as an asteroid you need A LOT of force. Just look at all the fuel required to put the shuttle into orbit, now compare that to moving something that's millions of times more massive and has to move millions of times more distance.
      • kylere, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Logicexe, we pulled thousands of tactical nukes offline at the end of the cold war, those warheads are just sitting there spalling and taking up space. But the real fact is we could skip those and use machines to crunch up and eject the matter from the asteroid itself as a propellant. This is not high tech, we could have done it in the 70's.
      • Logicexe, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Yes you could use the asteroid matter as propellant, but you still need the energy to launch the matter off the asteroid. Even with the negligible gravity found on smaller asteroid it would still require a ton of energy to accelerate the matter away. You cannot get around F = MA.

        Once again, I never disputed the fact that this was within our technological capabilities, I'm just saying that you're deeply underestimating just how much energy, time and money would be required to accomplish such a momentous undertaking.
    • SpacePoet, on 07/23/2008, -0/+4Solar panels are single crystal silicone wafers. Silicone is the eighth most abundant element, they're expensive yes, but the supply is not dwindling. Better materials are being developed to bring down that cost. Solar is here to stay and badly needed to extend our energy needs.
      • s2ao, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2They're talking about a network of (mostly) thermal solar farms, not photovoltaic. No need for expensive Silicon, just reflective panels.
  • judicar, on 07/23/2008, -6/+12Great idea, rely on power from an electrical grid located on another continent in one of the most unstable regions in the world. What could possibly go wrong?
    • waydee, on 07/23/2008, -1/+2Try reading the article.
    • crazy0, on 07/23/2008, -0/+0whtie people.....thats what went wrong
      • zacharytelschow, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1So... Africa was a peaceful and prosperous region before the arrival of Europeans?
      • crazy0, on 07/23/2008, -0/+0actually it was, dont see what you are trying to insinuate... white europeans took the cake and exacerbated the socioeconomic despair that exists today, and not only there mind you, the rest of the contemporary world :) thanks guys, really thanks
    • SouthernGuy118, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2i wasnt aware that the center of the Sahara desert was socially unstable
  • solidcube, on 07/23/2008, -1/+3Something like this will be happening, whether it's conventional photovoltaics, advanced photovoltaics or something else like the solar tower furnace/turbines.

    The same thing could very easily be done in the southwestern US. Solar is easy, lasts forever and has a fairly high energy density. Rollout of solar plants can happen incredibly fast because of the relative lack of complexity-- solar just requires thousands of simple modules. Large-scale use of solar is inevitable and we will be starting to see it very soon (5 years).
  • an0n1m0us, on 07/23/2008, -1/+5This is exactly the sort of sensible approach to global warming that can address both third world debt as well as first world needs.

    It's clearly a potential win-win and anybody who suggests otherwise really needs to take a good hard look at themselves. Take your negativity and shove it where the sun (and free endless solar energy) don't shine!
    • repins, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Free if your drinking water does not come from a source near a plant that makes solar panels.

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaic#Cadmium
      • SpacePoet, on 07/23/2008, -0/+2I'm sorry, were you trying to trick people into thinking this was a bad thing? Seriously, you have that nice Masons symbol there... Here, from the exact link you provided:
        The amount of cadmium used in thin-film PV modules is relatively small (5-10 g/m²) and with proper emission control techniques in place the cadmium emissions from module production can be almost zero...
        CdTe [cadmium] is only used in a few types of PV panels...
        Most of these emissions actually arise through the use of coal power for the manufacturing of the modules... (which would be burned elsewhere if not there)(annnd, if they switch to using solar to power the plant, that goes down to zero)

        So, what's the problem here?
      • repins, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Right and here we are talking about a VAST farm of these solar cells, with 5 to 10 grams of cadmium per square meter. I am not sure what they mean by vast, but let's just say it is a Kilometer square that could be called vast.

        1 square kilometer = 1,000,000 square meters so your looking ta 5 to 10 million grams of some very bad stuff in a very fragile ecosystem.
  • d686, on 07/23/2008, -6/+3humans are so blinkered when it comes to energy. "oil must power my car, everything else is lame." as long as the idiocracy doesn't dumb everyone down first, we should be able to solve all of our energy problems in between solar, wind, and hydro with a bit of innovative thinking.
    • MacEnvy, on 07/23/2008, -2/+1Wow, a condescending Frenchman. Who would have guessed.

      Not all of us Americans are the cretins you take us for.
      • d686, on 07/23/2008, -1/+21. i'm not french, just happen to live here.
        2. where do you see me mention americans? i wrote "humans".

        cretin.
      • MacEnvy, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1As for your second point, fair enough. I hadn't had my second cup of coffee yet. Feeling a bit defensive this morning.
  • macwac, on 07/23/2008, -2/+6I dislike EU talking about a common constitution, electrical grid, currency etc... sounds like another third reich. I know it's taking it a bit far, but I don't want to merge into a common country where all the decisions are made by someone sitting in another country/state deciding on the rules of my country/state - my grandfather and grandmother fought exactly this type of mentality in WW2. If saying no means paying more for my electricity, be it.. there are other alternative ways of being green and gaining the necessary electricity. Besides we can't do what we want in Africa - Sahara is owned by various countries and they choose what to do with it.
    • zacharytelschow, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Europe will become a country. Give it time.
  • subtle, on 07/23/2008, -3/+8You know how oil fields in Nigeria are regularly attacked by groups who steal oil, destroy equipment and take workers hostage? That's one African country. Multiply those problems by eleven if solar farms were set up in the Sahara.
    • madwaxer, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1the irony there is that all the weapons come form 'developed' states around the world pulling strings and paying bribes to further their own agenda. all at the peril of other peoples lives.
      i think all the african states need to come together instead to build their own solar cell grid and create their own power grid for farming, transport and defence.
  • repins, on 07/23/2008, -3/+4what about the environment? Here in the US the environmental lobby will not even allow a very small portion of ANWAR to be used to get oil, they even protest than wind power kills birds. How can they allow a "Vast Farm" of solar cells to cover the desert?
    • stonedthot, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3For one thing deserts cover about a third of the land surface of Earth and are increasing. I'm sure if they were small and rare there would be uproar about covering them in solar panels, as is, the spread of desertification is a bigger problem than using something like 0.01% of deserts to greatly contribute towards reducing global warming and thus helping preserve environments the world over.
      ANWAR is one of the last wilderness in the world and home to native populations as well as rare wildlife. The two are not even remotely comparable.
      • philhatesyou, on 07/23/2008, -1/+2You think all deserts are the same? In destroying large swathes of the Sahara, you think that can be made up for by keeping the Mojave pure? Though "environmentalists" want to plaster that in solar panels as well! You don't think there are rare and unique forms of wildlife in the Sahara? Please tell me you're joking.
      • stonedthot, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Of course there is unique life in any environment on Earth. However the Sahara is bigger than Australia and only just short of continental USA, so I think the native wildlife will survive losing a thousandth of its surface area to solar panels.
        There is always arguments about renewable projects such as wind farms and even tidal turbines, with reasonable and unreasonable opinions on both sides. However, in this case I don't think there can be any doubt that the good this project would do would far outweigh the bad.

    • Moonkeeper, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1You forgot to mention that those same environmentalists have no problem with drilling if its not for oil. Right now there is a group drilling to study the effects of global warming on ice.
    • zacharytelschow, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1This is a talk show host's website, but I think he has some pictures on it that sum up the to drill or not to drill in ANWR debate nicely.

      http://jaywebershow.com/
  • kinerry, on 07/23/2008, -4/+1Solar is not yet a viable energy source, it still has a way to go
  • nastronomical, on 07/23/2008, -4/+4and a handful of coal/nuke plant can provide power 24/7-365 days a year with little or now downtime.


    when it comes to energy listen to scientist and engineers, ignore politicians and enviromentalist.

    You know when something is total BS hwen they heap on the catch phrases to compensate for anything of substance.
    • HHP2K, on 07/23/2008, -2/+1You suck, go die! :D
    • sk11, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1The scientists are the ones demanding that politicians work with environmentalists.
  • amightywind, on 07/23/2008, -2/+3Solar thermal power is a lower cost choice. But does Europe want to continue to rely upon the capricious Muslims for power?
  • Ortheos, on 07/23/2008, -0/+8$45 billion? Pfff, Europe should spend $3 trillion invading some third world country instead for oil.
    • Moonkeeper, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1They're considering Africa so they have the third world part down.
      • Ortheos, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1But the invasion part is sorely missing.
  • jbmcb, on 07/23/2008, -0/+3I'm all for exploiting the desert for energy, as it's nearly useless for much else, except a never ending supply of glass and semiconductors.

    However, to me it seems like the desert is one big airborne piece of sandpaper. How will they keep the panels translucent against a giant, never ending sandblaster?
  • drmangrum, on 07/23/2008, -1/+4Why photovoltaics when solar-thermal is far more practical, especially when the area is covered by an excellent heat insulator ( sand )? I can understand the geographical reasons for wanting it in the Sahara desert, but did they not think through the political nightmare that could cause. Africa is even less stable than middle east. Any time some warlord gets a wild hair up his ass, he can easily shutdown the power grid. Not to mention if a war were to break out, the very first target would be that power plant. There is a very real reason why power plants are decentralized, and it's not just efficiency.
  • FLUX, on 07/23/2008, -1/+1what do you do at night
    what about power loss through the extreme distance of the power distribution grid
    and what fool sticks glass collectors in a desert, did the fool ever consider dust. and who is in charge of cleaning dust off 20k acres of solar collectors,or how do they take into consideration sand dunes that move constantly and are in excess of 70ft in hight

    your govt funds at work letting some dumbass dream up a totally unrealistic idea that is completely unattainable and then let some fool write an article in a magazine about it. why doesn't the trash rag guardian write a story about something useful like DRILL FOR MORE OIL and stop wasting time and trees printing crap like this. We can drill our way out of this short term while we seek long term answers
    • bukaw, on 07/25/2008, -0/+0at night? you have thermal storage so you can run at night, using concentrated solar power. Plants have been run for 157 continuous hours, so yes, they run at night.
      -power loss? Use HVDC, you lose much less power than through AC power; this technology is already in use transporting high voltages over long distances. Its more than economically feasible.
      Desert- have you ever heard of operations and maint. costs? do you think oil drilling is a cost free application, or that a nuclear power plant runs employee-free? to clean the mirrors, they spray them down with water truck mounted sprayers, or get dust-resistant mirrors.

      Your desire to drill your way out and find a long term answer is short sighted, this IS the long term answer. Ever heard the idea of peak oil? A temporary "fix" of drilling for more oil is only going to pump out more co2, and give people a false sense of security, putting off the inevitable. Your attitude seems almost like laziness; "why do today what i can put off until tomorrow," well, we have the technology now, why not do something constructive?
  • zacharytelschow, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1Everyone is green until it costs more. This sounds like it should cost a little less than what consumers are paying now (assuming this project can be done on or under budget, not likely) and doesn't pollute. Nice.
  • Salsa851, on 07/23/2008, -1/+0Wouldn't that just be a huge target for terrorism.
    • slowbox, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1My first thought. "Hey, lets turn off the electricity for all of europe with a baseball bat."
    • kcav8or, on 07/23/2008, -0/+0I think a big target like miles and miles of solar cells would be hard to secure against attack, but also hard to attack with any significant effect, unless you had several hundred carpet-bombers at your disposal. Something that big would have a lot of built-in redundancy.
  • madwaxer, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1the irony there is that all the weapons come form 'developed' states around the world pulling strings and paying bribes to further their own agenda. all at the peril of other peoples lives.
    i think all the african states need to come together instead to build their own solar cell grid and create their own power grid for farming, transport and defence.
  • h0ser, on 07/23/2008, -0/+1and then a giant sandstorm comes and scratches all their fancy solar panels.
  • DrJG, on 07/24/2008, -0/+1Africa being eyed again for exploitation and return of colonial powers! Shouldn't African resources finally belong to Africa and supply Africans with power, not to mention power to own the solar power of Sahara and to sell whatever is leftover from supplying their own?

    Spain could supply Europe, and so could Russia, and do well for themselves finally for once, after all these centuries.
  • jsofth, on 08/21/2008, -0/+0what do you do at night
    what about power loss through the extreme distance of the power distribution grid
    and what fool sticks glass collectors in a desert, did the fool ever consider dust. and who is in charge of cleaning dust off 20k acres of solar collectors,or how do they take into consideration sand dunes that move constantly and are in excess of 70ft in hight

    Thanks
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    your govt funds at work letting some dumbass dream up a totally unrealistic idea that is completely unattainable and then let some fool write an article in a magazine about it. why doesn't the trash rag guardian write a story about something useful like DRILL FOR MORE OIL and stop wasting time and trees printing crap like this. We can drill our way out of this short term while we seek long term answers

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