Supporters hailed the Desertec Industrial Initiative as the most ambitious solar energy project ever when it was founded in 2009. Major industrial backers pledged active involvement, politicians saw a win-win proposition and environmentalists fawned over Europe’s green energy future. For a projected budget of €400 billion ($560 billion), the venture was to pipe clean solar power from the Sahara Desert through a Mediterranean super-grid to energy-hungry European countries.
Today, a scant three years later, there is still little to show for the project but the ambition.
h/t peterj
Little or no point in a politically unstable region. It would be far to easy for terrorists to sabotage.
“The concrete projects are continuing on. The political negotiations are ongoing. The situation is quite normal.”
Yes,the situation IS normal, all f***ed up.
Strange how the industrial giants always back away from these green projects when there’s no more government/taxpayer money to subsidize them, hmmm.
It’s enough to make a fellow cynical.
$560 billion to fund a project that only delivers power if the sun shines.
No wonder they got cold feet.
A far more practical project would be to dig a canal from the Mediterranean sea to the edge of the Qattara depression. There’s a good gravitational gradient there and the hydroelectric potential of this project is huge. The climate is so hot that most of the water would evaporate very quickly, but in time a large salt water lake would form. Way cheaper than the proposed solar cell project and would make use of 18000 km^2 of what is now worthless desert.
It seems when it comes down to the choice between the realistic and practical or outrageously expensive “energy” projects that won’t come even close to producing the amount of energy that went into building them, the latter seem to win out in a political climate that is best characterized as insane. If one wants to really think big, then thousands of square miles of lightweight solar cells at Lagrangean points producing power to fuel space colonies are worthwhile doing. Solar cells in a dusty desert filled with 7th century savages aren’t worthwhile.
The 800 lb gorilla in the room that no-one seems to want to talk about is a violently anti-technologic death cult that inhabits the regions where one is proposing to house the fragile solar cells. Likely islamofascists would destroy solar cells far faster than the Saharan sandstorms. Unless one is prepared to sterilize the proposed area of operations with neutron bombs first, the idea is a complete non-starter.
I suggest we let the Euroweenies freeze in the dark. A frigid spell of still winter weather will give the adherents of wind power ample opportunity to consider the choices they’ve made as they slowly freeze solid in their unheated homes. Personally, I’d much rather live next to a nuclear power plant than a windmill, especially if I could utilize some of the waste heat in the winter. The only sane people in this Euro-idiocy are the Russians who still operate all of their nuclear plants and control the gas supplies to Europe.
Dummies, should have applied for government funding and built it in Ontario, where the voters are so stupid that they’ll support the failing project for at least nine years.
Perhaps a little harsh on the areas of Ontario that aren’t Toronto there Jamie. Rural people started voting against the program as soon as the free money dried up.
So, not stupid, just gimme gimme.
In fairness the Eco-propaganda is extremely heavy around here. All media are 100% all-in on this stuff.
Well said Loki.
This is just another in a series of so-called green scams. Snake oil salesmen did not disappear.
I totally agree Loki, after working around those bird blenders for just an afternoon, that was enough whoosh whoosh to last me a while. This scam has broke western societies, that was the intention of the self loather lefties along with money theft (Gore/Suzie-eekie etal), and the dopey gullible politicians and media twats that have gleefully facilitated, aided and abetted the SCAM of the ages rank far above Madoff Ponzi and every other scam artist, because they stole our money within a legal framework, a fiscal framework of theft is what this global warming was from the start. Be proud when you drive by an empty food bank you thieves.
Perhaps a little harsh on the areas of Ontario that aren’t Toronto there Jamie. Rural people started voting against the program as soon as the free money dried up.
So, not stupid, just gimme gimme.
Posted by: The Phantom at November 21, 2012 8:14 AM
Hard to convince me that gimme gimmie doesn’t equal stupid.
In that vast expanse of desert wasteland, I would suspect the eco-zealots would find some sort of rare bug, plant, or bacterium which would mean they’d get a court order to shut the whole thing down ‘to protect the environment’.
@loki The Qattara depression has a volume approximating 5.5 thousand cubic kilometres and thus a capacity of 12 billion tons of salt corresponding to 340 billion tons of sea water or 340 billion cubic metres. After that’s filled up, you build a hydro electric dam across the Strait of Gibraltar, which will keep us in electricity to the next Ice Age.
the eco-energy home retrofit programs are waaayyy better at “make work”.
we recladded the house with more insulation and got two grants, one fed-one prov. paid for the materials and some of my time.
looked at solar domestic hot water but can’t be bothered to do it myself. at some point the payback ain’t worth the effort. even to gaia.
when the oil sands are all cleaned up, that might be a secure place for solar.
@loki I forgot, as an interim project you could build a hydro electric dam across either the Bosporus or the Dardanelles.
“My friends we got Global Warming denier trouble right here in River City!”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s60hOgqLFGg
Jamie McMaster said: “Hard to convince me that gimme gimmie doesn’t equal stupid.”
I’ll grant you that, for sure. But not -as- stupid as the Torontards still voting for it even though they get nothing and their electric bills keep rising.
Turning down “free” money requires a higher level of intelligence than many people seem to exhibit even here in the country. Witness the number of non-functional solar arrays littering the rural landscape. They all sat right up and paid attention when Hydro cut the rates paid on wind and solar though, let me tell you.
Not a fan of photo-voltaics but how feasible is it to use curved mirrors to boil water and use the steam for power generation in (say) Arizona or Texas?
there is a working system in the southern US built awhile back by dept of energy or something like that (more a test model). output limited by # of daylight hours. plus heat up cycle limits actual kwh produced.
where does the sun go at night, daddy?
I believe the Israelis have for decades used “solar showers” – basically curved mirrors that reflect sunlight to heat up water containers on their roofs. Works well enough in their semi-arid environment, and nothing stores heat better than water. But it needs to be cleaned every second week – even a light layer of dust on the panels dimishes the output to the point where it won’t warm the water above ambient temperature. And of course, on cloudy days, you’d better like cold showers.
So of course, a plan to build thousands of square kilometers of solar panels in the desert (never mind the mind-boggling resources such a construction project would entail) where all that dust stays in place makes perfect sense.
In PowerPoint presentations, that is.
Rizwan said: “Not a fan of photo-voltaics but how feasible is it to use curved mirrors to boil water and use the steam for power generation in (say) Arizona or Texas?”
Two problems. First and worst is keeping the mirrors clean. Labor intensive. Wears out the mirrors too.
Second, large area of mirrors needed to produce significant steam. Like acres. Because the watts per square meter count is quite low, and because of heat transfer and other issues making it very hard to boil water with sunlight.
If there was no alternative and you were not going to get any power unless you did it this way, ok fine. But even a wood burning boiler is more efficient.
The whole large scale solar panel system is too fragile to survive without massive maintenance in a desert setting. After a few years they will all look like this :
http://notrickszone.com/2011/07/04/weed-covered-solar-park-20-acres-11-million-only-one-and-half-years-old/
Mix fairy dust , stupidity and taxpayers money and the color always comes up green.
They would have done better if they bought into my idea which is to use deep-sea pumps to force water through turbines on the surface. The deeper the pumps the more pressure is exerted on them which increases the water flow thereby producing more electricity. All of Europe’s electrical needs could be met this way and I’m confident it can be fully implemented for under $400 billion, saving taxpayers billions right from the git-go. A billion would get me going.
Nice….smooth, and so very reliable.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/bild-852815-389683.html
Arty, your asking for a mere billion will probably tip governments off that this might be a scam. Instead, ask for a 10 billion dollar down payment and a 10% share in the revenues of the power company when the high pressure seawater power plants are in full service.
Asking for that amount of money will let governments know you’re serious and a friend of the environment. While it’s just icing on the cake, it might help to drop a few million here and there to get Al Gore’s endorsement of your brilliant new technology which will put oil companies out of business.
Arty at November 21, 2012 10:24 PM
How would you power and service that type of pump ? In Hydro electric the power to turn generators is free but pump forced generators would require a fair amount of power. What is the advantage of using such a system and does it even exist ?