I suppose it comes down to your definition of ‘embracing’. They have built a few solar power plants, no doubt. But no one there has, afaik, made anywhere near the same level of investment in this technology than Europe or the US has (proportionally, of course). Why? If this is such a no brainer, why haven’t they REALLY embraced the technology? Why aren’t they getting 50 or more percent of their energy from solar power plants? They have the environment (supposedly…they have lots of sun at least). They have the capital. They have the cheap labor force. There are almost certainly lots of people who would be more than happy to sell them the technology and the expertise to set it up and run it (for a nice profit).
That’s where the Euro’s want to put these plants…because they have no oil. I’m talking about Saudi, Kuwait, UAE…basically the Middle East. They DO have a lot of oil, and lots of capital to spend. They should be putting up plants like crazy, deriving large percentages of their energy needs from all that sun shine, no? I mean, if this is such a no brainer, why aren’t they doing so? Even if oil is cheaper for them for now, they have to know it’s going to run out…and they have all that money they could be using to invest in this solar stuff.
ETA: BTW, Egypt is a fairly wealthy country, but they get a lot of their energy from hydro IIRC…but, they could afford solar as well, and of all the countries in the region they probably have the best set of circumstances for putting in solar.
Because they have no brain. And if solar power in uncompetitive in Europe/USA, how do you think it fares in Saudi Arabia where everybody can put a broken stick in the ground and tap their own first quality oil. Besides these are countries run by an army of Philippine housemaids, Indian day labours and European technicians and managers. The Saudi themselves are way to busy yachting in the Mediterranean banging Parisian whores to do anything as complicated as plan for the future. Can you name anything else they have done? Besides the 9/11 business. But there is a town being build in the UAE, which is supposed to be energy neutral. Getting all its energy from the sun.
A point on the distribution, it’s my understanding that Europe is investing more heavily in high-voltage DC transmission than the US is, which makes transmission over longer distances more practical. Of course, crossing the Mediterranean is still a nontrivial engineering problem.
I didn’t know that. I figured their grid was on par with our own. I wonder where they are investing most heavily. That would certainly take care of one of the problems I was thinking of, however.
:eek: That is pretty optimistic!
By ‘theoretical’, does it mean that every single photon falling in that area is diverted into electricity? As it stands, PV panels top out at 16% efficiency in converting sunlight into electricity, so for today’s tech you’d have to expand those areas accordingly.
The BBC did a story on what sounds like the same project. That group was going to go the solar tower route. Field of mirrors focusing light on central point to produce molten salt that is then used to generate steam. I have no idea how that compares to the old solar panels for efficiency but it has got to be cheaper than the panels.
The nice thing about the old-style panels is that you can plug them in and that is pretty much it.
I’ve heard of the molten salt towers. Those are nice in smoothing out the variability of solar power. The sun goes down but that molten salt will continue to generate steam all night long. Very clever.
I’ve heard of another method in which parabolic mirrors (actually not mirrors, but a cheaper mirror-like film) focus on a pipe that runs through the locus. Focused sunlight heats the pipe, which is full of oil, which is pumped out every so often to generate steam. With an array of these one could keep a more or less steady stream of hot oil flowing into a central steam generator. I can’t give you any specs but it is also supposed to be cheaper that the panels.
Well, this project does in fact include at least some of the ME:
At least Saudi Arabia is on board. As for the others, my gut feeling is that they want to milk oil for all it is worth. If they go nutz for solar power, the rest of the world will notice and deduce that the era of oil is over. If they wait for solar etc, they at least get to cash in on the next big price spike. Go for nuclear and they have the option to abandon the project under pressure. I don’t think this kind of thinking renders anybody ‘evil’ either- it is plain old simple business.
One more thing: I started to view this as a humanitarian project. Water shortages are a major and growing problem in Africa. Something like this directly mitigates the problem- yay EU! Hmmm, poverty is a major problem in Africa, but a half trillion dollars might generate some jobs. Maybe some regions will get something to do besides form militias and slaughter people. In a region that seems to deliver so much suffering, here is a new bright spot. Could be worse.