Green Options

Jordan is planning on building a companion piece to the Red-Dead Canal while the World Bank study is on-going. In its place is a Jordan-only proposed desalination plant in Aqaba that will pump saline brine into the Dead Sea.

An earth-shattering deal currently being finalized between Shell and Jordan’s Natural Resources Authority will potentially allow Shell to survey and develop nearly one quarter of Jordan in order to access about 40 billion tonnes of oil shale.

“Negotiations with Shell to sign a deal to process oil shale in Jordan are nearing an end,” said Maher Hjazin, head of the state-run Natural Resources Authority.

If our plans succeed, it would be one of the country’s largest projects to help the Jordan become energy self-sufficient, with a possibility to export oil in the future.

The World Economic Forum, held this weekend in Egypt, featured speeches by luminaries like President Bush of the USA; President Mubarack of Egypt and King Abdullah of Jordan but, eco entrepreneurs shared the spotlight.

Young leaders from the Middle East have called on their business and government leaders to implement reforms immediately and transparently if they are to fulfill their potential by 2025. “We need faster change to keep pace with what’s happening in the rest of the world,” said Amira Abdel-Aziz, a masters student at Cairo University.

If a Jordanian Prince has his way, yes.

Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan believes that giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean coast of northern Africa and the Middle East could power up to one-sixth of Europe’s electricity. What’s more, the Prince says the stations could function as desalinization plants to provide Africa and the Middle East with fresh water.

Prince Talal calls his plan “Desertec” and has pitched it to the European Parliament and it has the support of many engineers and politicians in Europe, Africa, and the Middle East. In the Prince’s view, countries with so much desert should work with the more energy-intensive nations to build a mutually beneficial solar power scheme.

Europe’s initial investment would be about 10 billion dollars for more than 100 generators, fitted with thousands of huge mirrors. Those mirrors would use a technology called “concentrating solar power,” or CSP. A CSP station has several hundred banks of giant mirrors that can be controlled to focus the sunrays on a central metal pillar filled with water. The water then starts to heat up and ends up vaporizing into a superhot steam which drives turbines and makes electricity.