Sahara desert project aims to power half the world by 2050
December 2, 2010 by Lin Edwards 
Image credit: Diginfo TV
(PhysOrg.com) -- A joint project by universities in Algeria and Japan is planning to turn the Sahara desert, the largest desert in the world, into a breeding ground for solar power plants that could supply half the world’s electrical energy requirements by 2050.
The Sahara Solar Breeder Project aims to begin by building a silicon manufacturing plant in the desert to transform silica in the sand into silicon of sufficiently high quality for use in solar panels. Solar power plants will be constructed using the solar panels, and some of the electricity generated will supply the energy needed to build more silicon plants to produce more solar panels, to produce more electricity...
Leader of the Japanese team, Hideomi Koinuma from the University of Tokyo, said while no one has tried to use desert sand as a source of high-quality silicon before, it is the obvious choice and will be of high enough quality.
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Sahara Solar Breeder Project. (DigInfo TV)
The energy generated by the solar power plants will be distributed as direct current via high-temperature superconductors, a process that Koinuma said will be more efficient than using alternating current. He envisages a large network of supercooled high-voltage direct current grids capable of transporting the expected 100 GW of electricity at least 500 kilometers. Even if the grid needs to be cooled with liquid nitrogen, Koinuma said it could still be cost-competitive. (High-temperature superconductors operate at about -240°C.)The Sahara Solar Breeder Project (dubbed the Super Apollo Project by Koinuma) is being developed as part of the International Research Project on Global Issues by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). The team expects to have to overcome many problems, including frequent sandstorms, the need to use liquid nitrogen to cool cables and to bury them in the sand to minimize fluctuations in temperature, and so on.
The initial aims of the research will be focused on tackling the expected challenges and demonstrating the project’s viability. Training engineers and scientists from Africa in the entire research and development process is also a goal of the project.
Another project aiming to harness solar power in the Sahara was launched last year. The Desertec Foundation aims to supply 15 percent of Europe’s electricity requirements by 2050 using high-voltage direct current transmission lines without superconductors.
© 2010 PhysOrg.com
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Dec 02, 2010
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Dec 02, 2010
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Dec 02, 2010
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There are already more cost effective methods with same concept than this one-- a very sarcastic way at thinking of our future rather than going for the most common sense.(popular science DEC. 2007)
Dec 02, 2010
Rank: 5 / 5 (1)
That aint cheap...O&M is where I need to start a business :)
Dec 02, 2010
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Dec 03, 2010
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I don't know if solar power is even at a break even point yet. If the factories that make solar cells and the vehicles that transport them to where they are used and the people who maintain them all had to use electricity generated by solar power instead of cheep coal could they actually break even? If they can break even, by how much? It doesn't do society much good if 50% of the people have to be employed in the production and maintenance of solar power. We have a comparatively small percent of people engaged in energy production now and sociologist predict anything less than a 3 times return on energy invested to energy returned makes modern society very difficult to sustain and reduces most of mankind to a barely survivable energy subsistence society.
Dec 03, 2010
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That said: the 'solar breeder' concept is interesting and they should definitely give it a go.
Dec 03, 2010
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Spain spent billions and billions on this sort of stuff. Only a matter of time before we will be asked to bail them out of their financial mess.
Dec 03, 2010
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Dec 04, 2010
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Jan 18, 2011
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Jan 18, 2011
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Jan 18, 2011
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My calculation about solar, though, suggested that a very large area of area would be required to address present demands. And that is before non-emission vehicles get more common and added to the mix. So that is where I see deep geothermal as such a great thing. And it would drop the earth's core temperature only 1 degree in 100+ billion years at our present use, according to my calculations. And that does not include any heat added by potassium's radioactivity The Sun is suppose to fail in about 5 billion years. So it sounds like a safe bet to say there is enough deep geothermal energy on earth for it to last for as long man is here.