Website review: How Africas desert sun can bring Eu...
laodan discovered this in Alternative Energy
•4 reviews since Dec 1, 2007
alternative-energy
•guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/dec/02/renewa...
People who like this website
- jasonstone
San Francisco
- amanda000
Eugene
- ar0cketman
Socorro
- burkinaboy
Seattle
- keepinitsimple
Omaha
- sustainablogger
Saint Louis
- laodan
Wisconsin
- leiaxe
Georgia
- jstackbass
Fort Myers
- konradc
Markham
StumbleUpon is the best way to discover great web sites, videos, photos, blogs and more - based on your interests.
Everything is submitted and rated by the community. Discover, share and review the best of the web!
Reviews of this website
laodan discovered 6 months ago- How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power in The Guardian by Robin McKie
Europe is considering plans to spend more than 35bn dollars on a string of giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East. More than a hundred of the generators, each fitted with thousands of huge mirrors, would generate electricity to be transmitted by undersea cable to Europe and then distributed across the continent to European Union member nations, including Britain. Billions of watts of power could be generated this way, enough to provide Europe with a sixth of its electricity needs and to allow it to make significant cuts in its carbon emissions. At the same time, the stations would be used as desalination plants to provide desert countries with desperately needed supplies of fresh water. ... Europe would provide initial funds for developing the solar technology that will be needed to run plants as well as money for constructing prototype stations. After that, banks and financial institutions, as well as national governments, would take over the construction programme, which could cost more than 400 bn dollars over the next 30 years. How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power Desertec, as this project between Europe and North-Africa is called, is based on a technology dubbed 'concentrating solar power'. Things are staring to move in the right direction and hope is thus on the way. But before such projects materialize in supplied electricity it will take a decade or two. So in the meanwhile the energetic problem of humanity will persist. In short the demand for oil and gas is growing faster than its supply and prices are shooting up. This shows us that the world will soon enter into a period of scarcity and the intensity of the problem will thus be multiplied: - peak oil means that half of all the oil in the ground has been pumped in the past. It was the cheapest oil to pump and costs will now increase drastically. But peak oil also means that the total oil supplied is going to decrease annually by a percentage of 2 to 7%. - the oil producing countries are on an oil consumption binge that is leading to less and less oil available for export. The next 2 decades will thus be extremely difficult for all of us in terms of our energetic bills. My personal take is that we should start by reducing our needs for energy in our homes through insulation and the use of passive solar and geo-thermal techniques to reduce the quantity of energy we need. Our transportation needs could be solved by a combination of increased public transportation choices and our private use of vehicles running from non-fossil power sources: compressed air, auto-generation of hydrogen,etc...
- How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power in The Guardian by Robin McKie
- solasaurus rated 6 months ago
- And now for some good news! From the page: "Europe is considering plans to spend more than £5bn on a string of giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East. More than a hundred of the generators, each fitted with thousands of huge mirrors, would generate electricity to be transmitted by undersea cable to Europe and then distributed across the continent to European Union member nations, including Britain."
- burkinaboy rated 6 months ago
- A £5bn solar power plan, backed by a Jordanian prince, could provide the EU with a sixth of its electricity needs - and cut carbon emissions
- Xtine66 rated 6 months ago
- How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power A £5bn solar power plan, backed by a Jordanian prince, could provide the EU with a sixth of its electricity needs - and cut carbon emissions Robin McKie, science editor The Observer Sunday December 2 2007 Europe is considering plans to spend more than £5bn on a string of giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East. More than a hundred of the generators, each fitted with thousands of huge mirrors, would generate electricity to be transmitted by undersea cable to Europe and then distributed across the continent to European Union member nations, including Britain. Billions of watts of power could be generated this way, enough to provide Europe with a sixth of its electricity needs and to allow it to make significant cuts in its carbon emissions. At the same time, the stations would be used as desalination plants to provide desert countries with desperately needed supplies of fresh water. Last week Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan presented details of the scheme - named Desertec - to the European Parliament. 'Countries with deserts, countries with high energy demand, and countries with technology competence must co-operate,' he told MEPs. ...
