4/8/2021 Desertec, a fascinating dream

Nexis® Document: Alerts Desertec,

Select
a fascinating dream
Language ▼
Robert 
Disclaimer
Actions
Wainwrigh
      Search Go to  Folders
All terms 2  History 
Search document 
3 of 3 Results list 
 

Desertec, a fascinating dream

GreenUnivers.com

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Copyright 2009 GreenUnivers.com All rights reserved

Length: 1340 words

Body

It is extremely rare that large companies, supported by an institution as serious as the European Union, embark on a project so
futuristic that it relegates to the rank of DIY the Apollo mission: to install a string of huge solar thermal plants in the Sahara and
the Arabian Desert to supply renewable electricity to the region itself and much of Europe.The Desertec project, which we
presented to you last month (but which has since been revamped somewhat) , since weeks already widely debated in our forum, 
was officially launched Monday by a dozen large European companies, including 9 German ones, which decided to set up a design
office responsible for studying the feasibility of the project for 3 years. Enough to revolutionize ourworld record ranking for solar
thermal projects, until now largely dominated by the Americans and their huge power plant projects in the deserts of California or
Nevada, but in which the same European companies, pillars of Desertec, are already participating.Without wanting to dampen 
enthusiasm, we will not include Desertec in our book of records until its feasibility is further substantiated. This project valued at
400 billion euros - 350 billion for power plants, 50 billion for power transmission lines - plans to install in North Africa and the
Middle East , from Morocco and as far as Saudi Arabia, about twenty solar power plants of 5 GW each. That is about 100 GW,
almost as much as the French electricity production capacity. 28

The project was first developed in the 1970s, and the German Aeronautical and Aerospace Center (DLR) largely contributed to the
preliminary studies of the project calculating that covering 0 3% of the deserts of North Africa would produce enough electricity
https://advance.lexis.com/document/?pdmfid=1519360&crid=738f541c-d9ac-4eab-a63f-bb1a0be14104&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fnews%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A59RP-Y681-DY… 1/4
4/8/2021 Desertec, a fascinating dream
preliminary studies of the project, calculating that covering 0.3% of the deserts of North Africa would produce enough electricity
for the regionDocument:
and Europe.The technology in question, where thousands Desertec, a fascinating dream
Select Language ▼

sunlight towards giantDisclaimer
towersActions
Results list 
      Go to  All terms 2 of parabolic

mirrors reflect
Search document  3 of 3
filled with a calorific fluid (molten salt, oil ...), which heated, turns steam turbines producing electricity, is called concentrated

solar (CSP), a solution that is booming today.If the global installed capacity is still modest, at 450 MW, according to the European
Solar Thermal Electricity Association (Estela), many projects are emerging, especially in the southwest of the United States and in
Spain. , the two largest current markets. And estimates count on a potential of 70 GW in 2020 in the world. 9 German groups, 1
Spanish, 1 Swiss, 1 Algerian Among the signatories of the Desertec project on Monday are the main European players in
European solar thermal, also sometimes competitors. Even those who are participating in colossal California projects and are also
starting to install this type of thermal power station in southern Spain, such as Andasol, led by the two German energy giants
E.ON and RWE ( which has just taken a direct stake in Andasol ), the reinsurer Munich Re which considers thus to fight against
the global warming and its costly hurricanes for a reinsurer, the bank Deutsche Bank, the Siemens group (which at the same time
builds giant steam turbines for this type of power plants and power transmission lines); the German solar groups Solar
Millennium (which projects giant thermal power plants in California) and its rival Schott Solar, the engineering company M + W
Zander, and the German bank HSH Nordbank, but also the Spanish solar plant installerAbengoa Solarand the Swiss giant ABB,
world leader in transmissions. The European Concentrated Solar Association (ESTELA) is also a member of Desertec.What about
the countries supposed to host these plants? A single North African company was among the signatories of Desertec on Monday:
the Algerian agri-food group Cevital, one of the large companies in Algeria , specialist in oil and margarine, one of the Algerian
success stories of these last years. Note also the presence during the signing of the memorandum of understanding of
representatives of the Arab League and the Egyptian Ministry of Energy. There are also fascinating projects for a "supergrid".- a
huge spider's web of high-voltage electric cables --- which would connect the wind turbines in the North Sea to the solar power
plants in the Sahara, to supply all of Europe with renewable energies, the north wind taking over the night of the sun of the
Sahara by day ... Eco-colonialism? But the crusade of large groups to create large settlements in Africa, even dressed in green,
evokes bad memories. Especially when the vast cane cultivation projects in sugar or jatropha for biofuels conducted in Kenya by
large Asian groups threatens thousands of peasants and paysages.Pour respond to reviews - circulating already - "of eco-
colonialism ",Desertec also has the ambition to provide "a considerable part" of the needs of energy-producing countries and to
desalinate sea water to provide drinking water to local populations and contribute to their development. On the financing side, the
Union European Union, pushed by Germany which made this project its own, should be involved. In any case, this is what 
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and European Commission President José Manuel Barroso said, who have already welcomed the
initiative and indicated that the EU could provide funds. will have the heavy task of determining the economic viability of the
project, resolving issues such as the location of power plants in politically stable areas, research and financing. . The horizon is
distant - 2050 - which postpones more concrete debates. GreenPeace ardently defends the project . On the other hand,
Desertec has a weighty opponent: Hermann Scheer, German social-democratic deputy, one of the European solar popes,

president of the Eurosolar association and of the World Renewable Energies Council, and above all father. of the brand new
International Renewable Energy Agency, IRENA Hermann Scherr does not criticize the technical or economic feasibility of
Desertec, nor its ecological interest, but the principle of exporting renewable energy on such a large scale to the detriment of
28
producing countries. For him, Desertec is "the Morgan Fairy" andit is better to develop renewable energies locally than to
imagine a vast circuit based in the Sahara to supply Europe Another criticism, that of the German solar leader, Solarworld, but
which uses photovoltaic solar (with photovoltaic cells a completely different technology) than solar thermal) and naturally is not
https://advance.lexis.com/document/?pdmfid=1519360&crid=738f541c-d9ac-4eab-a63f-bb1a0be14104&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fnews%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A59RP-Y681-DY… 2/4
4/8/2021 Desertec, a fascinating dream
which uses photovoltaic solar (with photovoltaic cells, a completely different technology). than solar thermal), and naturally is not
Document: by explainingDesertec, a fascinating
Select Language ▼
dream  Disclaimer
Actions
3 of 3 Results list 
     
part of Desertec. Solarworld sums up the views
Go to  of skeptics
All terms 2
 thatSearch
“building solar power
document 
 plants in unstable countries
leads to a similar dependence to that which already exists on oil. While it makes sense to produce solar power where it is

cheapest, there is currently no network to distribute it. The promoters of Desertec obviously want to rally all the support
elsewhere in Europe and are launching a call for donations on their site. The project is a dream in Morocco and Algeria, where
we can already imagine that "solar will replace oil". As for the Americans, they remain for the moment perplexed by the
immensity of the project. But, if all this worked ... the project could save 4.7 billion tonnes of greenhouse by 2050, six times the
annual production of Germany today. (pdf)

Classification

Language: FRENCH; ENGLISH

Publication-Type: Internet publication

Subject: LEGISLATION ON MERGERS, ACQUISITIONS & JOINT VENTURES (89%); EUROPEAN UNION (78%); PRODUCTIVITY
(78%); SPACE PROGRAM (77%); NATURAL RESOURCES (76%)

Organization: EUROPEAN UNION (84%)

Industry: CONSTRUCTION OF AIRCRAFT ENGINES (98%); ELECTRICAL ENERGY INDUSTRY (89%); ELECTRICAL ENERGY PLANT
(89%); SOLAR ENERGY (89%); SPACE PROGRAM (77%); FOSSIL FUEL POWER PLANT (77%); ELECTRICITY TRANSPORT &
DISTRIBUTION (76%)

Geographic: NEVADA, UNITED STATES (79%); SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES (55%); EUROPE (95%); AFRICA (92%); SAUDI 
ARABIA (79%); ASIA (79%); AFRICA (73%); WESTERN EUROPE (72%); ASIA (72%); MIDDLE EAST (72%); NORTH AMERICA
(70%); NORTH AMERICA (58%); NORTH AFRICA (58%); SPAIN (58%); MIDDLE EAST (57%); SOUTHERN EUROPE (57%)

Load-Date: November 11, 2013



28

https://advance.lexis.com/document/?pdmfid=1519360&crid=738f541c-d9ac-4eab-a63f-bb1a0be14104&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fnews%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A59RP-Y681-DY… 3/4
4/8/2021 Desertec, a fascinating dream

Document:
Select
Desertec, a fascinating dream
Language ▼
3Disclaimer
Actions
of 3 Results list 
      Go to  All terms 2  Search document   

About Privacy Cookie Terms & Sign Copyright © 2021

LexisNexis® policy Policy conditions out LexisNexis.

28

https://advance.lexis.com/document/?pdmfid=1519360&crid=738f541c-d9ac-4eab-a63f-bb1a0be14104&pddocfullpath=%2Fshared%2Fdocument%2Fnews%2Furn%3AcontentItem%3A59RP-Y681-DY… 4/4