Solar Power - From The Deserts
As you can tell, I'm on a roll here with global warming and sustainable energy. I came across what might be the future of power generation for Africa through a renewable source - the sun. Fossil fuels are drying up, and global warming is upon us. Renewable energy is the only long term solution to our looming energy shortages.
Enter the “Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation”. This company wants to build an ultra high-efficiency DC (direct current) power grid across the deserts of the middle east and africa upwards throughout Europe including offshore windfarms.
The best solar power technology for providing secure capacity is solar thermal power plants (also called Concentrating Solar Thermal Power, CSP). They use mirrors to concentrate sunlight to raise steam and generate electricity. Excess heat from additional collectors can be stored in tanks of molten salt and then be used to power the steam turbines during the night, or when there is a peak in demand. In order to ensure uninterrupted service during overcast periods or bad weather, the turbines can also be powered by oil, natural gas or biomass fuels. An interesting by-product that can be a great benefit to the local population is that waste heat from the power-generation process can be used to desalinate seawater and to generate thermal cooling.
Further information about concentrating solar power (CSP) may be found at:
http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/index.htm
and
http://www.trec.net.au/
I love solar power I think over the next few years it’s going to be exploding even more… as performance of solar panels goes up people are going to be adopting it everywhere they can… after all it’s free energy
BTW here is more solar power information -> Solar Power
I wonder if they are using the Sunflower Solar Concentrator.
Good post! I came across that site too, and totally agree as to the potential benefits of the CSP.
I was however concerned that this specific project is mainly geared towards supplementing Europe’s energy needs as detailed on the site:
“Power from deserts, as a supplement to European sources of renewable energy, can speed up the
process of cutting European emissions of CO2 and it can help to increase the security of European energy supplies. At the same time, it can provide jobs, earnings and other benefits for people in North Africa and the Middle East.”
well, if they do put up the money and use the desert to generate the energy then they very well are within their rights to go ahead. It is a good idea that the sub-Saharan countries ought to emulate and create a consortium of their own. Sahara’s energy potential will primarily serve Europe though, which is rather sad IMO.
@Erickarn - i don’t think they are using the sunflower - sunflower is geared towards rooftop installations and is much smaller than the DESERTEC. This is on a much bigger scale i think, though the physics behind the sunflower and CSP are just about the same.
- sorry DK- didn’t mean to blog on yr blog - fun stuff
AfroM - you are right about this being a supplement to European sources of renewable energy… which is understandable of course, considering there’s only a sliver of population in this region that can afford the energy even at the low price. In the long run though, the Saharan countries do stand to benefit.
I did notice your solar concentrator article on your blog - interesting. You may want to look up Flisom - http://www.flisom.ch/e/index.html - they’ve created a dark polymer foil, as thin a sheet of paper that seems to work as well as current materials, but a lot cheaper to manufacture.
I would imagine that another way to store the power could be through a fuel cell system. Run the electric current through water and produce hydrogen.. then combine the H and the O again and you have a biproduct of pure water which could be used for drinking water for local populations. I suppose this could be incorperated into desalinization plants.Or more simply the hydrogen could be burned conventionally like natural gas or something.
Re fuel cells and hydrogen, I believe it is a lot cheaper to store solar energy in the form of heat in tanks of melted salts and then use that heat to generate electricity at night or when it is cloudy.
Solar electricity can be used to generate hydrogen but, in principle, it would be more efficient to split water directly using solar heat. Some research is going on into that idea.
CSP plants can be used to create fresh water but normally it is done by using waste heat from steam turbines to desalinate sea water. This is probably a more efficient way of using solar energy than generating hydrogen from dirty or salty water and then burning the hydrogen.
As interesting as this form or energy generation may be, nothing comes from nothing … what happens to the environment immediately surrounding these plants - the plants and animals?
As our greed for energy increases, we will be impinging on our environment further and further. When does it end?
Surely there is SOMETHING out there that has less impact than coal/oil fired generators, wind turbines and monster solar projects!!
I don’t hear “conservation” and “energy reduction” nearly enough.
I agree that they human tribe is far too greedy. If we are all to live comfortably but not extravagantly, then the human population needs to be very much smaller than it is now and certainly very much smaller than where it is headed for in 2050 and beyond.
At present, there is an urgent need to stop emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases. If emissions are not stopped, huge damage will be done to plants, animals and people around the globe.
Conservation and energy reduction are very important but cannot do everything. Consequently, there is a need for clean sources of energy such as solar power.
Less than 1% of the world’s deserts can produce as much electricity as the world currently consumes. There would still be 99% of the deserts left for animals and plants.
Keep at it solar folks- we need to get that efficiency vs cost in line, then we will see them take off from a market standpoint.(And the cost come way down) We are almost there! We can do it!
Also, one application we use in our industry is natural gas fired ovens. There is a possibility to use some of the heat to convert to steam then to electricity. Does anyone have any info on solid companies that can construct steam generators/ electric convertors?
Hello again,
idea: work on the techonolgy to have solar arrays in space, then beam the concentrated power(laser or some other power source) to a collector on earth. This way we won’t use up the land here and no atmosphere will dramatically improve solar performance. (kind of the reverse of the Tesla ‘death ray’- call it the ‘life ray’ LOL- please, no malfunctions with the beam though!
Sounds ‘out there’ I know, but we need to think big to get big results.