
Should we solar panel the Sahara desert? - e15ctr0n
http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34987467
======
notatoad
We should not be covering any wilderness (even a relatively barren wilderness
like the Sahara) with solar panels until every inch of roof in the developed
world is covered in solar panels. There's a ridiculous amount of flat open
surface that is just wasted space right now, and not only is the space going
to waste but the energy consumers exist _right underneath_ that wasted roof
space.

~~~
mabbo
That's a silly notion.

I've lived in many places (Seattle, Edinburgh) where a solar panel is only
useful about 25% of the year due to clouds, or the simple fact of being so far
north. We don't all live in Southern California.

The Sahara presents an environment with lots of sunlight, little clouds, and
nothing else being developed there. And it doesn't need to be solar panels-
solar farms based on collectors reflecting to a central tower are what is
being cited in the article. We can't do that in most developed areas, because
it takes up a lot of space- deserts are mostly empty, perfect for that.

In short, it would make far more economic sense to build solar panels in the
Sahara and lose 50% of the power to transmission loss piping it all to
Scotland than it ever would to put the same solar infrastructure into
Edinburgh (or many other cities in the world).

~~~
iamnothere
Solar panels still work in cloudy weather, though the efficiency is reduced.
Transmission losses are huge over long distances, plus you would have the
added problem of securing the panels and transmission lines against sabotage
-- and the Sahara isn't exactly the most politically stable part of the world.

~~~
PhantomGremlin
_Transmission losses are huge over long distances_

I found this document from ABB,
[http://www02.abb.com/global/abbzh/abbzh250.nsf/0/2adcc78ab7f...](http://www02.abb.com/global/abbzh/abbzh250.nsf/0/2adcc78ab7f0f967c12574c00046478a/$file/HVDC+-+efficiency+and+reliability.pdf),
they know a thing or two about power transmission. They claim:

    
    
       A 2,000-km long HVDC line rated at 800 kilovolts
       loses about 5 percent of the electricity it
       carries to heat, while an equivalent AC line
       would lose twice that amount, or about 10 percent.
    

I wouldn't call either of those losses "huge". There are of course additional
losses in converters or transformers. Still, that's darn good, better than I
would have guessed.

 _plus you would have the added problem..._

Those are fair points, I think much more significant than the transmission
losses.

------
ars
Yes, capture energy there.

But don't make electricity, make hydrocarbons using the
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_proces...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process)

Ship water and coal, and return with mixed hydrocarbons, then distribute them
all over the world. You thermalize (rather than electrolyze) the water to get
hydrogen, then react it with the carbon from the coal.

Build a large pipeline to the nearest port to transport the material rather
than trucking it.

The leftover oxygen can be sold, or more likely just released.

Since hydrogen releases much more energy (per atom) than carbon when burned,
and since since hydrogen outnumbers the carbon in the final product, this will
greatly reduce CO2 emissions, even though it's not completely zero.

Capturing heat from the sun is much easier and cheaper than electricity.

~~~
murbard2
Forget the coal, make methanol from water and co2.

~~~
civilian
What ars is saying that he wants to take the complex and partially-saturated
hydrocarbons in coal and turn them into a hydrogen-satured hydrocarbon. (Most
coal has a lot of double-bonds and loops within the carbon, in addition to a
hydroxyl groups.) Since energy is released every time you break a bond, you'll
have more bonds to break in the end product, but with the _same amount_ of
carbon, so you're keeping emissions constant while adding energy.

Regardless, it would be interesting to start with CO2 rather than coal. But
can it be sucked up from the atmosphere efficiently and in mass quantities?

~~~
radicalbyte
Well, trees have been doing it for a long time. Where do you think the carbon
in the trees comes from? :)

~~~
baddox
Trees do lots of cool things that we don't know how to do. That's true of
biological life in general. Heck, the lightest insulation for outdoor clothing
is still feathers.

~~~
murbard2
Aerogel is lighter than feathers and more insulating. There was a kickstarter
this year for a jacket using aerogel as an insulator.

[http://www.orosapparel.com/pages/technology](http://www.orosapparel.com/pages/technology)

~~~
baddox
True. It's pretty exciting tech, although apparently it's not very comfortable
or easy to work into clothing and gear. It seems pretty promising for very
extreme conditions though, like climbing Everest.

------
_ph_
The sahara could be a source of endless solar energy. But for the obvious
political and technical considerations Europe probably first should look into
installing large solar plants in Spain, Italy and Greece. Not only would it
support the economies of those countries, but it would be very easy to connect
those solar farms to the European grid. Also it would give a nice daytime
distribution of the power as Spain and Greece are at the western and eastern
borders of the European Union.

------
charlesdenault
A distributed system of solar arrays intelligently placed on top of every
building in the world, back-feeding into the grid or powering on-site
batteries (Tesla Powerwall, etc.).

Or massive array in one geographical region susceptible to natural disasters,
politics, or terrorism.

I'll take the distributed system.

~~~
pm90
There are benefits to both.

You can't use a distributed system for, say, Aluminum smelting, which requires
tons of electric power.

If the idea suggested in the article is implemented, the Sahara could be
turned into a "powerhouse" and an invaluable economic resource to the rest of
the world. Integration of this system into the global economy would entail
tremendous changes to both the world's interest and understanding of Northern
Africa.

------
zyxley
Solar panels on the sort of scale being discussed here would, once you
consider the logistics of maintenance, basically be a small (or large) town
that also has a huge number of solar panels.

Running a company town devoted to solar panel maintenance in the middle of the
Sshara wouldn't be impossible, but it's a lot harder than just plunking down a
one-time infrastructure investment.

~~~
collyw
Lets face it, if oil was discovered there, the infrastructure to drill and
process it would appear. Is processing solar energy any more difficult?

------
lvspiff
>> "I think the only reason to pursue [solar panels in the Sahara] would be if
it were a stopgap measure in which the long-term goal would be to reduce
consumption of energy and to change our lifestyles to be more sustainable, so
that subsequent generations don't have to deal with as many problems as we're
going to leave them."

I hear this logic a lot and disagree. Finding more sensible and environmental
ways to produce electricity needs to be the goal because we cannot be more
sustainable. Mankind thrives on energy. I think the past 263 years (since
Franklin's kite experiment) have shown us electricity is a way of progressing.
We need power to run things. Where that power comes from is the difficult
part. Unless another form of energy is found that can be used to work everyday
devices from phones, to computers, to lights, not sure how we get away from
electricity and only continuing to increase its consumption.

As for paneling the desert - The massive solar arrays in the Mojave desert
outside of Vegas show that the sun can be used effectively, but the cost to
produce the materials and impact on desert flora/fauna that go into the arrays
are just as bad for the environment. The material cost alone in terms of
environmental impact make it a laughable endeavor in terms of "environmental"
concern.

~~~
bendykstra
I don't like her analogy in which she compares solar panels to smokestacks. As
she points out, smokestacks were not a complete solution to air pollution
because they merely moved the problem somewhere else. Solar panels are in no
way comparable in that respect. The analogy only works if you consider energy
production to be itself a problem.

~~~
Edmond
She could simply be trying to say that nothing is ever free. Conservation of
energy dictates you need energy to produce energy, no matter the tricks you
use to get energy there is always a cost even if it is not immediately
apparent.

~~~
pm90
I think this line of reasoning just confuses the argument being made. The law
of conservation of energy and the idiom that "nothing is free" are not the
same. I believe the argument being made was that resource extraction and
manufacturing for the machinery required for generating renewable energy
causes as much damage to the environment as using non-renewable sources of
energy. Im not sure if that is true, but I don't have the research to support
either way. I do think that with more adoption and development of renewable
energy, the extraction processes themselves could be made more environment-
friendly.

------
abalone
What about water usage? At scale, doesn't it take a significant amount of
water (for a desert) to clean the dust off the panels?

~~~
jws
Brushes are fine.

------
anindyabd
So the technology is already there, but we can't/won't implement this because
of politics? What a shame!

~~~
eloff
When there's enough money to be made in it, private industry will just make it
happen. We're not quite there yet, but it seems likely to happen as prices for
solar keep falling. Politics don't have to enter into it, but government
involvement has the potential to speed up the process.

------
graycat
What to do with the resulting electric energy?

(1) Smelt iron or aluminum?

(2) Split H2O into O2 and H2 and use the H2 for fuel.

(3) Convert water and coal to gasoline.

(4) Desalinate and/or purify water and use the water for humans food and
drink, bathing, washing, swimming, lawns, greenhouse agriculture, or just to
_make the desert bloom_?

(5) Heat salt to store the energy, and then run water through tubes in the hot
salt to generate high pressure steam to drive steam turbines and, then,
electric generators and, then, transmit the power across the Mediterranean to
Europe and sell it?

Uses (1)-(4) have the advantages that get just to use the power while the sun
is shining and don't have to store the power for nighttime use or transmit the
electric power long distances. Would have to transmit the hydrogen or gasoline
for those options.

In the words of the skeptical mayor's wife in the movie _The Music Man_ , "I'm
reticent. Yes, I'm reticent."

Why? The idea is not nearly new. So, I do have to suspect that a good
engineering-economic analysis would show that we would need progress in:

(1) Keeping desert sand off the solar panels.

(2) In case want to use the electric energy to make hydrocarbons, a good
source of coal near the desert.

(3) Energy storage.

(4) Superconductivity for the transmission lines across the Mediterranean.

Might be able to pay for it if the world can agree on some huge _carbon
taxes_.

Nukes might be be cheaper.

Might keep in mind that the spot, wholesale cost of electric power in the US
has been under $0.01 per KWH and the full cost, say, ballpark $0.06. So, the
cost to a consumer of 10, 12, 22 or so cents per KWH is mostly for
distribution, not generation. But the panels in the desert handle only the
generation part, do nothing for the short distance distribution costs where
the consumers are and make the long distance distribution, e.g., across the
Mediterranean, more expensive.

Also on the money side, might want to keep in mind that the major oil sources
in the Mideast pump oil for less than $1 per barrel. That price is tough to
compete with.

Right, might be shipping the power to France which is doing quite well with
nukes.

Then once carbon taxes start to take hold, people might watch

'The Great Global Warming Swindle'

at

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Mx0_8YEtg)

and discover the evidence that CO2, methane, etc. from human activities has
nothing at all to do with the climate or temperature of earth and, instead,
changes in those two are driven by changes in the activity level of the sun,
the sun spots, the solar wind, the blocking of cosmic rays hitting the
atmosphere, the rate of formation of water droplets, the rate of H2O cloud
formation, and, thus, the cooling effect of clouds.

Then people will object to carbon taxes.

Net, it appears that while the Watts of solar energy per 1000 square miles of
desert are astoundingly high, for what people in the population centers want
in electric power, motor fuel, clean water, etc., that desert solar power is
just not very valuable.

------
stevefeinstein
The Media always seem to frame questions like this wrong. The question to ask
is, "Why shouldn't we solar panel the Sahara Desert?" And once that question
is answered we get started.

~~~
iSnow
Well, the industry asked the question and then left the DESERTEC consortium.

------
zobzu
who's going to dust the sand off the panels, with what energy though?

~~~
marshray
Sounds like a do-able job for robots, perhaps evolved from windshield wipers.

