• Sahara’s sun could help power Europe for $70 billion

  • brightsource-thermal-solar-sahara.jpg
    So often people forget to see the obvious while fighting to prove the impossible. A research expert from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria has come up with a smart idea. He said ‘constructing a large array of solar panels in the Sahara desert can provide enough electricity to supply all the power needs of the entire Europe’. With all the big shot technological advancements, it’s not going to be too hard to make this a reality. He has also noted that the costs to move electricity for long distances have come down and estimated that only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, needed to be covered with panels in order to extract enough energy to supply the whole of Europe. What they would do is use mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on to a thin pipe containing either water or salt. The rays would then boil the water or melt the salt and the resulting energy would power turbines and this can be stored for several hours.


    He mentioned that there are hurdles of course and that the government would have to pitch in close to $70 billion for this to happen. There would also be opposition from residents and of course the other issue – one resident evil of the world will seep in to make this a far cry – politics. If the scientists can formulate an equation to pass them, they win.
    [ConsumerEnergyReport]

    Posted in Topics:Alternative Energy, Tags: , on March 16, 2009