Green Options

It’s not diamonds.  Nor is it gold.  But it might be just as lucrative. European firms this time have their eyes on North African deserts as the location of a giant network of solar thermal plants to provide low-carbon energy for Europe.

Experts say only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, would need to be covered to produce enough energy to supply the whole of Europe. Written by David Adam at the Guardian.

In the Sahara, life hangs in the balance. As nomadic lifestyles vanish, urbanization threatens one of the desert’s last elephant populations. Conservationists must work fast to quell human-elephant conflict in the most arid habitat on Earth.

Solar power—is there anything it can’t do? British scientists have found a new use for solar technology with the Sahara Forest Project, a proposed plan to combine greenhouses that use seawater to grow crops with solar power installations.

The greenhouse-solar power combination could potentially provide food, fresh water and energy to deserts.

According to the project’s designers, the technology works by having greenhouses use solar farms to power seawater evaporators. Cool air is pumped through the greenhouses, reducing the temperature by about 15 C compared to outside.

According to a news report recently published in the UK’s Guardian newspaper, European nations are planning to harvest the sun in the Sahara desert in Africa to “provide clean electricity for the whole of Europe” but there is no mention of how such a development will also benefit Africa.

“Vast farms of solar panels in the Sahara desert could provide clean electricity for the whole of Europe, according to EU scientists working on a plan to pool the region’s renewable energy,” reports the newspaper.

As the world continues to investigate energy sources that are environmentally friendly, there is a need for developed countries to actively promote both technology and skills transfer to poorer nations. The fact is the problem of climate change is a sum of its parts. If one part of the world lacks appropriate solutions, the problem will still come back to haunt even those countries that have access to perceived technological solutions.

The Sahara desert is a truly vast environment - with sand dunes reaching 180 meters high, scorching temperatures and fierce sand storms it provides a real test for any method of transportation.

So how, does the eco-option for crossing this massive and barren landscape stack up against more modern technologies? This is a question posed regularly at EcoWorldly and I recently had the opportunity to put it to the test during a journey which took me from the ‘Gateway to the Sahara’ in Douz, Southern Tunisia, to Matmata, a desert village of cave dwellings famous for providing the location for Luke Skywalker’s home in the Star Wars movies.

(Note: the author only discovered this fact after arriving - this was not a pilgrimage.)

Our local guides presented us with two options: The camel - trusty ship of the desert, as used for centuries by desert dwellers, and the equally ubiquitous Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4 – the motor vehicle of choice for those needing to travel across challenging terrain.

We gave both modes of transport a thorough workout in an attempt to compare our eco camel against it’s more modern counterpart, making assessments on comfort, emissions, speed, reliability, off-road capability and fuel consumption. The testing process consisted of two days of travel across the desert by camel, camping overnight in the dunes, followed by a further day’s journey in the Land Cruiser.

What do they do with chocolate products they can’t sell? Off to the landfill to decompose and create methane. Wish they could just send it to me. Two young Britons, Andy Pag and John Grimshaw, have traveled more than 4,000 miles across the Sahara using such chocolate as fuel.

The two decided to prove the viability of different kinds of feedstock to produce biofuels, especially biodiesel and ethanol. They’ve done that, traveling from Poole, England to Timbuktu, Mali, 4,473 miles, using 396 gallons of fuel made from three tons of discarded chocolate.

The truck was salvaged from a scrap yard, repaired and fitted for the long trip. It will remain in Timbuktu, a donation to a local charity. The crew will also set up a small processing unit to convert waste oil products into fuel.