Europe could soon be partially powered by solar energy harvested in North Africa, if a new project called Desertec become reality. The project aims to capture solar energy with a method called concentrating solar power (CSP), transferring it from the desert to Europe through high-voltage transmission lines.
Last week, a group of German businesses announced plans to pursue financing for the project, which is expected to have a price tag around €400 billion, or $555 billion.
From The New York Times:
Munich Re, the large German insurance company, is leading the charge to bring the concept to fruition, and a meeting is scheduled for mid-July to formalize the coalition, which includes companies like Siemens, Deutsche Bank and the energy giant E.On.
“The time now is perfect to start this initiative,” Alexander Mohanty, a Munich Re spokesman, said in an e-mail message Friday, “as climate protection has become an urgent issue and our economies need new impulses.”
Large-scale C.S.P. projects — essentially expansive fields of solar collectors, or mirrors, that concentrate rays from the intense desert sun to heat water, generate steam, drive turbines and produce electricity — are not revolutionary. Such projects have been undertaken in the U.S. Southwest, Spain and elsewhere.
Once completed, Desertec would take the crown as the largest centralized solar power production project on earth. But, not everyone thinks it’s a good idea. Critics question why Europeans should rely on African territory for solar power, when they could harvest it in their own backyards. Frank Asbeck, CEO of SolarWorld, Germany’s largest solar power company, believes that building solar plants in politically unstable countries would entail the same dependency problems as oil.
It also remains to be seen whether Africans would even benefit from this project. Do we really need to rip yet another resource out of their hands?
Link [The New York Times]
Photo credit: Flickr user Shayan
