Where did the Desertec project go wrong, and can desert solar power yet play a role in a democratic and sustainable future? If you use social. Critics of Desertec questioned the viability of a project to generate GW by at a cost of € billion, and doubts multiplied when. asks, “Where did the Desertec project go wrong, and can desert solar power still play a role in a democratic and sustainable future?” If you use social media, you.
Author: | Shakale Tojinn |
Country: | Cuba |
Language: | English (Spanish) |
Genre: | Relationship |
Published (Last): | 2 February 2018 |
Pages: | 468 |
PDF File Size: | 9.18 Mb |
ePub File Size: | 9.77 Mb |
ISBN: | 230-9-17108-301-6 |
Downloads: | 55095 |
Price: | Free* [*Free Regsitration Required] |
Uploader: | Zulkilkis |
By importing up to 20 percent of its power from the deserts, Europe could save up to 30 euros for each megawatt hour of desert power. The negative effects of desalination can be minimized, to some extent, by using renewable energy to power the plants.
However, if Desertec is really serious about addressing desettec crises, it needs to target their structural causes.
Egypt’s Water Crisis – Recipe for Disaster.
You can access the entire archive of over issues with a digital subscription. InFirst Solara producer of thin film solar panels, joined Dii as associated partner.
The future of Desertec
From smoke stacks to solar: How did we get to the point where two African countries are trying to shut down our aid funded schools? Wind turbines produce electricity by wind turning projecg blades, which spin a shaft, which connects to a generator which produces electricity. Desettec on 4 August Where will the water come from that will cool the solar power plants?
The great African desert is relatively cloud-free all year long but it’s important to note the harsh, desert climate also has some negative features such as extreme heat and sometimes dust or sand-laden winds which frequently blow over the desert and can even result in severe duststorms or sandstorms.
Desertec: What Went Wrong?
Wealth and growth, detached from dangerous carbon dioxide emissions, that are responsible for global warming, pproject the condition for the survival of humankind.
Terms and Conditions Privacy Policy Contact us. Since solar fields feed their heat energy into a conventional generation unit with a steam turbine, they can be combined without any problem with fossil fuel hybrid power plants. The German Environment Ministry did not respond to a call for comment.
The coal and nuclear industries also receive substantial subsidies. Generating so much of the electricity consumed in Europe and in Africa would create a political dependency on North African countries which had corruption before Arab Spring and a lack of cross-border coordination. She argues that an area of kilometres x kilometres the biggest box on the image would be enough to meet the total electricity demand of the world.
Dii also considers photovoltaics PV as a technology suitable for desert power plants. Being an apolitical techno-fix, it promises to overcome these problems without fundamental change, basically maintaining the status quo and the contradictions of the global system that led to these crises in the first place.
Desertec: What Went Wrong? | EcoMENA
To build plants in countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt, desertfc to 90 percent of the energy generated would have to be exported in order to cover the initial capital investment.
The non-profit Desertec Foundation was founded in January by a network of scientists, politicians and economists from around the Mediterranean. North Africa and Africa dessertec large are indeed part of this trend. However, with or without Dii, the Desertec vision is still going ahead with projects in Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria.
Europe is currently witnessing a situation in which RES capacity is competing to replace existing conventional plants. They feared the question: One gas leak too many. There is nothing inherently wrong or dishonest in the Desertec idea.
Desertec abandons Sahara solar power export dream –
And Desertec is an order of magnitude larger and more complicated than the offshore wind parks currently under construction in the North Sea. On the one hand, emerging economies – Turkey, Brazil, China, India, etc. Atlantropa aimed to integrate Europe and Northern Africa and its electricity grid based on a giant hydro power station at Gibraltar.
The regularity and the constancy of winds in arid regions are major assets for wind energy, too. Desertec was presented as a response to the issues of climate change, the Russian-Ukrainian gas conflicts in andfears of peak oil, and the global food crisis of Please support us with a small recurring donation so we can keep it free to read online. The Desertec foundation did publish a set of criteria to ensure that large-scale solar projects in desert regions are implemented in an environmentally and socially responsible way.
A renewable megaproject like Desertec that ties European economies to corrupt MENA governments would create exactly the same kind of problems.