Europe's Saharan power plan: Miracle or mirage?
A 400 billion euro plan to power Europe with Sahara sunlight is
gaining momentum, even as critics see high risks in a large corporate
project using young technology in north African countries with weak rule
of law.
Desertec, as the initiative is called, would be the world's most
ambitious solar power project. Fields of mirrors in the desert would
gather solar rays to boil water, turning turbines to electrify a new
carbon-free network linking Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
Its supporters, a dozen finance and industrial firms mostly from
Germany, say it will keep Europe at the forefront of the fight against
climate change and help North African and European economies to grow
within greenhouse gas emission limits. Others warn of numerous pitfalls,
including Maghreb politics, Saharan sandstorms and the risk to desert
populations if their water is diverted to clean dust off solar mirrors.
They say the concentrated solar power (CSP) technology behind
Desertec involves greater costs and risks than the fast-growing
patchwork of smaller-scale photovoltaic cell installations that generate
most of Europe's solar energy today. Desertec's founders are lured by
the fact that more energy falls on the world's deserts in six hours than
the world consumes in a year.
"The Sahara offers every advantage you want proximity to Europe,
virtually no population and more intense sunlight," said George Joffe, a
research fellow and Maghreb expert at Cambridge University, who is not
affiliated to the plan.
"It would be mad to pass up this opportunity."
Proposed by the Club of Rome, an international group of experts that
suggests solutions to global problems, Desertec became an industrial
project last month when reinsurer Munich Re hosted its launch at its
headquarters in the Bavarian capital.
"We have a special relationship with climate change: it affects our
core business, the insurance of weather-related natural catastrophes,
which count among the most expensive losses we have to bear," said Peter
Hoeppe, Head of Munich Re's Geo Risk Research department. Many European
governments aim to cut their greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent
below 1990 levels by 2050.
REUTERS |