Economists will tell you there is no reason to fear the impacts of climate change. Human ingenuity combined with the brute force of the market will provide all the brilliant innovations we need to ward off our inevitable demise. Sounds like something out of Star Wars? Brace yourself, it’s about to get better.
A new $500-billion project known as Desertec will harness the power of the sun in North Africa’s Maghreb desert to produce power for much of Europe. The project is based on solar thermal technology, as opposed to photovoltaic cells. Essentially hundreds of thousands of mirrors will be place in the desert to heat water, generate steam, and drive turbines in a local power plant. The electricity will then be transported via high-voltage transmission lines to markets in Europe.
There are so many variables for disaster within this project, it’s hard to know where to begin. The Maghrab desert spans North Africa’s bastion of security, including Algeria, Mali, Niger, Libya and Mauritania. Conservative critics argue that “If this project is built, Europe will shortly become dependent on it, and the Islamic world will have a second, and much tighter, noose to add to the oil one.” While the project could provide stability for the region by providing income, jobs and the creation of a new industry, it also has a certain neo-colonial flavor, where European investment is for the benefit of Europe at the detriment of Africa.
Moreover, the mere notion of transporting electricity such distances when it can be produced cheaper at home seems, well, senseless. The foundation of the environmental movement lies in regional solutions. Perhaps that doesn’t bode well for development initiatives overseas, but perhaps local development initiatives are more successful anyway. This plan sounds about as stable as the geo-engineering research that suggests we should fight global warming by shooting sulfur disks into the atmosphere (everyone loves a good bath in acid rain, right?)
But perhaps there’s something more at play here. Not only will Desertic provide up to 15 percent of Europe’s power, it will also provide a place to claim all those lovely CDM carbon credits required for Europe to fulfill it’s Kyoto commitments. Two birds, one stone. Now that’s innovation.
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I’d say the political aspects you highlight are the biggest stumbling point. From a technical or economic point of view, there doesn’t seem to be anything insurmountable, here. I’d be skeptical that once the economies of scale for this come on stream, local renewables in Europe would remain cheaper; solar is pretty latitude sensitive, not to mention the tremendous real-estate it requires in what is already a densely developed continent. High-voltage DC transmission is very efficient, and while the infrastructure is certainly a big up-front cost, the costs of business-as-usual aren’t trivial, either…
As far as neo-colonialism goes, however, this strikes me as the best possible incarnation for it. You could hide enough concentrated solar power generators in the Sahara to power the entire world and unless someone was actively searching for them, you wouldn’t really notice. And you neglected to mention the potentially huge fringe benefits for the locals; waste heat from power generation can be used to desalinate sea-water, providing fresh water to one of the most arid regions in the world. Not to mention all the shaded area beneath the mirror panels that could become the basis for desert agriculture when combined with said abundance of freshwater. I agree that it’s always important to be wary of intentions (especially when Euro-African relations are concerned…) but this doesn’t have to be zero-sum.
Interesting points! I’m still in favor or local solutions for local problems, but perhaps that’s an un-realistic approach in an increasingly globalized environment.
I’d also like to believe this doesn’t have to be a zero-sum game, but I have a hard time seeing many fringe benefits for locals – the sea is hundreds of miles away, and last I checked, Muammar Qaddafi was better known for his support of international terrorism and his impeccable fashion sense than this love of sharing fringe development benefits in Libya.