The Arid Desert : An Energy Oasis ?
What if we could use the huge and sweltering hot deserts as sites for solar plants ?
This story appears in Quark Magazine and was written for Climate Tracker’s COP Contest.
Easier said than done, the staggering expenses involved in the manufacturing of the conventional Photo-voltaic cells have prevented the transformation of the desert into a solar powerhouse. Yet today, a new technology has come to the forefront: Concentrated Solar Power Plant (CSPP) technology, a genius application of science dating back to Archimedes. It uses the most common of objects — a mirror precisely , to reflect the sunlight received onto a core that heats up a liquid that would then go on to run a steam turbine to generate electricity.
How effective are these you may ask? Leading experts are to believe that energy is set to get cheaper down to 1/4th of the original cost, while the carbon emissions are too set to reduce drastically.
An example of an CSPP plant is the Noor-1 in the MENA (Middle-East and North Africa) region.
This 6,178 acre plant could be the best way of land utilization in the Sahara. It has over half a million mirrors arranged in 8000 rows and has costed a whopping $2.5 billion just for its first phase. The Noor 1 has till now lived up to its billing. Not only has it already made energy cheaper by at least 10 cents per kW, it is estimated to have saved 240,000 tonnes of carbon per year! Morocco is a country with no fossil fuel reserves and instead of importing them, the country that hosted the 22nd Conference of Parties is setting an example for others by turning to this revolutionary tech that is set to provide energy to all of the previously impoverished sub-saharan region and account for over 50% of Morocco’s energy needs in the next 15 years.
More places such as Abu-Dhabi and California are also underway in the construction of such CSPPs with many projects already completed. While the initial funding may seem daunting, several development banks are ready to invest in such projects and this indeed is a glimmer of hope for many countries on equatorial latitudes like India and Egypt who could heavily benefit from affordable and clean energy.
The mighty deserts could indeed be the answer to mankind’s thirst for energy, a different kind of oasis perchance.
Citations
Barley David, Vidu Ruxandra, Stroeve Peter. “ Innovations in concentrated solar power ”. Independent Publication — Elsevier 2011.
Masseti Emmanuele, Ricci Elena C. “ An Assessment of the Optimal Timing and size of investments in Concentrated Solar Power ”. Independent Publication — Elsevier 2013.
