# 400-billion-euro African solar-plan **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 14, 2009, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960 "2009-07-14T07:09:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rune](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e68b1a/32.png) [@Rune](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rune)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/1 "2009-07-14T07:09:14Z")
[400 billion Euros invested by a group of European companies led by Siemens in solar projects in North Africa](http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5g48wkbW-apZoVpqaxt7i4EHeKODw). That seems to me an extremely risky project for such a massive investment. Such a gigantic investment must have a decades long payoff time frame. Who can predict what happens in twenty, thirty or forty years. What happens if Morocco or Algeria in twenty years suddenly decides to say thank you Europe and nationalise all the solar panels on their ground. Like Egypt did with the Suez Canal. Then the whole investment will be lost. Will Europe go to war to prevent such an act? Will Europe be morally in the right to protect such an investment with arms if necessary? Would southern Portugal or parts of southern Spain be such a bad alternative to take on the extra risks in Africa? ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/2 "2009-07-14T07:30:41Z")
I expect this proposal is in very preliminary stages: > [@](#): > > Many details still have to be worked out however, including where to install the plants, when the power would come on and how much it would cost, potential profits, political stability in some areas and of course, financing. I would imagine that various oil-producing countries from the region would have a big ownership stake in this project from the beginning reducing the political risk. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/3 "2009-07-14T07:55:50Z")
I doubt oil-producing countries will be much interested in supporting solar energy. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/4 "2009-07-14T07:58:14Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I doubt oil-producing countries will be much interested in supporting solar energy. I don’t see why that would be true considering many oil producing countries are also in the desert and have lots of sunlight. The real consideration would be whether or not they wanted to put solar panels in the desert and pay someone to squeegee them every day so that they are not covered in Sahara dust. I don’t think most oil producing nations burn oil for their electricity. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/5 "2009-07-14T08:01:12Z")
What do \*you \*think they burn for electricity? Camel dung? Solar power means a decrease in use of fossil fuels, thus leading to a decrease in petroleum prices. Why would nations whose sole source of wealth is oil support any sort of alternative energy? ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/6 "2009-07-14T08:12:59Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > What do \*you \*think they burn for electricity? Camel dung? > > Solar power means a decrease in use of fossil fuels, thus leading to a decrease in petroleum prices. Why would nations whose sole source of wealth is oil support any sort of alternative energy? Because their oil is likely to taper out over the next few decades and they need to invest their surplus into projects which will yield income after that happens. Since these countries have a lot of useless desert, solar energy is not a bad bet particularly since they are quite close to European countries which are big energy importers and also quite active about global warming. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/7 "2009-07-14T08:16:27Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > What do \*you \*think they burn for electricity? Camel dung? Umm…coal? > [@](#): > > Solar power means a decrease in use of fossil fuels, thus leading to a decrease in petroleum prices. Why would nations whose sole source of wealth is oil support any sort of alternative energy? Because oil’s benefit is that it is highly portable so it would be more profitable to sell as much of it as they can and get their electricity from the Sun instead? ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/8 "2009-07-14T08:20:09Z")
On looking it up I see that they do in fact use petroleum to generate electricity in Saudi Arabia. Still regardless, if they can do it for cheaper with Solar why wouldn’t they? That means more oil to sell. I fail to see the economic benefit in using up their oil domestically. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/9 "2009-07-14T08:21:13Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > Because their oil is likely to taper out over the next few decades and they need to invest their surplus into projects which will yield income after that happens. Since these countries have a lot of useless desert, solar energy is not a bad bet particularly since they are quite close to European countries which are big energy importers and also quite active about global warming. Well the dust from the desert hurts the efficiency of the solar panels, but in addition to having other options when the oil runs out, it also stretches their supply of oil. ---
**Author:** ![Lantern](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/d26b3c/32.png) [@Lantern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lantern)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/10 "2009-07-14T08:37:28Z")
> [@mswas](#): > > Well the dust from the desert hurts the efficiency of the solar panels, but in addition to having other options when the oil runs out, it also stretches their supply of oil. Perhaps part of the business model would be using cheap labor from Asia and Africa to maintain the panels. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/11 "2009-07-14T08:38:53Z")
> [@Lantern](#): > > Perhaps part of the business model would be using cheap labor from Asia and Africa to maintain the panels. It would have to. ---
**Author:** ![Aquila\_Be](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a698b9/32.png) [@Aquila\_Be](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aquila_Be)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/12 "2009-07-14T10:11:23Z")
All this enormous expenditure just to provide 15% of Europe’s electricity needs? The linked article in the OP does manage to squeeze in at least one sane remark: > [@](#): > > Renewable energy analyst Sebastian Zank at West LB bank, which is not involved in the project, said it might succeed but only "in the very, very long term. > “As long as there are no transmission networks between these two continents this is more or less a nice future fantasy,” Zank told AFP. Another article from [world-nuclear.org](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html) discusses various realistic options for future power needs and supplies for advanced industrial societies in the OECD. It’s a serious article that examines all practical and semi practical options. Solar doesn’t get a mention. The Siemens nonsense is just another empty PR exercise. A low cost way to convince carbon footprint alarmists like Al Gore and his media flacks that they’re being taken seriously by big biz. Nothing will come of these cost free castles in the air now being conjured up by large multinational firms like Siemens. Actually, that’s very lucky for the west. If this grandiose project was in any way viable from an energy point of view then there is no doubt that many multinational firms wouldn’t hesitate to squander hundreds of millions of Euros or Dollars on such projects to the ultimate detriment of their investors. When it comes to politics those who run things in the world of big business tend to be as clueless and naïve about politics as any arts faculty nitwit, especially when dealing with the dictators who rule most of the countries mentioned in the article. As for the European “union” going to war to protect its so-called economic interests, apart from the ability of Europe to conduct a military campaign being nonexistent, that is not how a sensible government economic government policy should be applied. Governments should concern themselves with prevention, not cure. If some of its firms are oblivious to the lawless nature of the countries and polities in which it wishes to invest then a responsible government should prevent those firms from making such investments. Governments should not go beyond those limits by going to war to try to “protect” foolish private investments. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 10:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/13 "2009-07-14T10:36:32Z")
> [@Aquila\_Be](#): > > Another article from [world-nuclear.org](http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf02.html) discusses various realistic options for future power needs and supplies for advanced industrial societies in the OECD. It’s a serious article that examines all practical and semi practical options. Solar doesn’t get a mention. …So you’re saying it _doesn’t_ examine all practical and semi-practical options? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 10:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/14 "2009-07-14T10:47:33Z")
It’s not being spent up-front, all at once, in some giant gamble. Somebody assigned a WAG to a cost if everything were built out. The technology for transferring the power inexpensively isn’t even invented yet. _“at the moment the costs are so high it is not economically viable.”_ The 400B figure is for the headlines and the PR of looking green. They are actually clueless what a final cost might be. You can bet your own moolah that if the first few Billion euros doesn’t produce much success, the other $395B won’t get spent… ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/15 "2009-07-14T20:27:21Z")
**Aquila Be** 400b doesn’t seem like that much to me to provide 15% of Europe’s energy needs. The issues of jurisdiction and energy networks of course are perfectly valid. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/16 "2009-07-14T20:41:46Z")
> [@](#): > > Actually, that’s very lucky for the west. If this grandiose project was in any way viable from an energy point of view then there is no doubt that many multinational firms wouldn’t hesitate to squander hundreds of millions of Euros or Dollars on such projects to the ultimate detriment of their investors. If the project were viable, then the money spent on it wouldn’t be “squandered”. And the United Arab Emirates, despite being rolling in petroleum money, are investing pretty heavily in alternative-energy technologies, since they know they won’t always be rolling in petromoney. There’s no reason other countries couldn’t follow their lead. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/17 "2009-07-14T20:55:42Z")
I wonder how they figure to get the power from Africa to the European grids. Also, while it seems pretty intuitive to build massive solar plants in the desert (lots of sun and all that), it would take a LOT of maintenance to keep such a facility up. I was watching a show on the new style plant in Spain and it took daily maintenance to keep it up and running (they have to wash the panels daily, as well as preform other maintenance on the drivers that maintain the optimal focus). And this is in SPAIN…which is a bit more hospitable than North Africa (which is where I presume the solar plants would be located…sorry, haven’t read the linked article in the OP yet). I doubt this is a serious project, though…certainly I highly doubt the Euro’s are going to want to spend over $500 billion US dollars on such a project (that is a mind boggling amount of money, even amortized over a decade or so which I presume this would be). The technical challenges alone would mean that, even leaving aside building the actual plants, just building the infrastructure to get the power back to Europe (and, unless they figure out how to do so with less loss than a current grid, would nix the project right there) would be highly challenging. I don’t believe the plants currently or in production in Spain even get the power back to the main grid, but only service cities in the immediate vicinity. I do love these pie in the sky projects though…if Europe spent $560 odd billion dollars on nuclear plants they would be completely energy independent AND with no CO2 emissions. Hell, with probably a ton of money to spare (figure around $10 billion per plant, that would be 550 plants…heck, they could probably power the US and the rest of the world with 550 nuclear power plants). -XT ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/18 "2009-07-14T20:58:08Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > I wonder how they figure to get the power from Africa to the European grids. Also, while it seems pretty intuitive to build massive solar plants in the desert (lots of sun and all that), it would take a LOT of maintenance to keep such a facility up. I was watching a show on the new style plant in Spain and it took daily maintenance to keep it up and running (they have to wash the panels daily, as well as preform other maintenance on the drivers that maintain the optimal focus). And this is in SPAIN…which is a bit more hospitable than North Africa (which is where I presume the solar plants would be located…sorry, haven’t read the linked article in the OP yet). What’s your point? All power plants require daily maintenance. > [@](#): > > I doubt this is a serious project, though…certainly I highly doubt the Euro’s are going to want to spend over $500 billion US dollars on such a project (that is a mind boggling amount of money, even amortized over a decade or so which I presume this would be). The technical challenges alone would mean that, even leaving aside building the actual plants, just building the infrastructure to get the power back to Europe (and, unless they figure out how to do so with less loss than a current grid, would nix the project right there) would be highly challenging. I don’t believe the plants currently or in production in Spain even get the power back to the main grid, but only service cities in the immediate vicinity. The infrastructure to get the power back to Europe is the real issue at stake here. Can’t you get enough sunlight in Italy, Greece, Southern France and Spain to justify building plants there? > [@](#): > > I do love these pie in the sky projects though…if Europe spent $560 odd billion dollars on nuclear plants they would be completely energy independent AND with no CO2 emissions. Hell, with probably a ton of money to spare (figure around $10 billion per plant, that would be 550 plants…heck, they could probably power the US and the rest of the world with 550 nuclear power plants). Europe has been spending a great deal more on solar in the past decade than we have I believe. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/19 "2009-07-14T21:08:56Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] What’s your point? All power plants require daily maintenance. [/QUOTE] Not to be snarky, but have you noticed that North African is a desert? 🙂 One point can be summed up in one word…water. Another point can be summed up in two words…dust storms. Another one word term would be ‘inhospitable’. The thing is, people just assume you can put these things in the desert and they will simply run. Yeah, all power plants need daily maintenance…but solar plants in a desert environment need a LOT of daily maintenance, and in an environment that is inhospitable to things like moving parts. And people. Water is also notoriously in short supply. None of these things are show stoppers…but they add a lot to the non-capital costs of running and maintaining such a plant. > [@](#): > > The infrastructure to get the power back to Europe is the real issue at stake here. Can’t you get enough sunlight in Italy, Greece, Southern France and Spain to justify building plants there? They ARE building plants there. And yeah, I agree…I think that people look at North Africa and think ‘Wow! What a great place to build a power plant! We should just use all this wasted desert and put solar plants everywhere!’ without thinking through the engineering, or understanding how power is actually transmitted back to the main grids. How the hell they plan to get the power back is, to me, a complete mystery…they would have to either build something like a hydrogen farm and then tank the hydrogen back to Europe, or they would have to build some kind of magical transmission loss free infrastructure (sure, it’s not really magical…superconductors and all that) from Africa to various parts of Europe (or they would have to build it to, say, Spain, then build up their grid from there to distribute the bounty throughout Europe). Either way, I’d think this would probably cost a large chunk of the $500 billion US. > [@](#): > > Europe has been spending a great deal more on solar in the past decade than we have I believe. Sure. But they don’t have any magical transmission loss free infrastructure either, so they have to build the plants relatively near where the folks who use the power are. And my point there was that they could use that money more effectively if they used it on nuclear plants (or, local solar plants in their own individual countries). That’s a LOT of money after all. -XT ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2009, 9:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960/20 "2009-07-14T21:14:18Z")
> [@xtisme](#): > > Not to be snarky, but have you noticed that North African is a desert? 🙂 One point can be summed up in one word…water. Another point can be summed up in two words…dust storms. Another one word term would be ‘inhospitable’. Not all of North Africa is a Dune. > [@](#): > > The thing is, people just assume you can put these things in the desert and they will simply run. Yeah, all power plants need daily maintenance…but solar plants in a desert environment need a LOT of daily maintenance, and in an environment that is inhospitable to things like moving parts. And people. Water is also notoriously in short supply. There is that whole Meditteranean Sea thing. > [@](#): > > None of these things are show stoppers…but they add a lot to the non-capital costs of running and maintaining such a plant. Yes, but so do high European wages. > [@](#): > > They ARE building plants there. And yeah, I agree…I think that people look at North Africa and think ‘Wow! What a great place to build a power plant! We should just use all this wasted desert and put solar plants everywhere!’ without thinking through the engineering, or understanding how power is actually transmitted back to the main grids. How the hell they plan to get the power back is, to me, a complete mystery…they would have to either build something like a hydrogen farm and then tank the hydrogen back to Europe, or they would have to build some kind of magical transmission loss free infrastructure (sure, it’s not really magical…superconductors and all that) from Africa to various parts of Europe (or they would have to build it to, say, Spain, then build up their grid from there to distribute the bounty throughout Europe). Either way, I’d think this would probably cost a large chunk of the $500 billion US. Something tells me that anyone investing half a trillion in such a thing will have hired an engineer who thinks about such things. > [@](#): > > Sure. But they don’t have any magical transmission loss free infrastructure either, so they have to build the plants relatively near where the folks who use the power are. And my point there was that they could use that money more effectively if they used it on nuclear plants (or, local solar plants in their own individual countries). That’s a LOT of money after all. Right, it’s all about cost/benefit ratios. And you are underestimating the wage differentials between Morocco/Algeria/Libya/Egypt and France/Spain/Italy/Greece. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/400-billion-euro-african-solar-plan/502960.md?page=2)