Greens go for big: solar farms in the desert 30 November, 2007
Posted by Willy De Backer in Solar, energy security, renewable energy.trackback
I was quite surprised this week when I attended a conference organised by the Greens in the European Parliament and saw them do the lobbying for a grand solar industrial project which I think still has a lot of uncertainties and even environmental dangers.
The DESERTEC project [see Wikipedia FR] aims at building huge concentrating solar thermal power plants in the Middle East and North African (MENA) desert regions and then transporting the electricity produced via high-voltage direct-current transmission lines to Europe. The project could also provide water security for the EUMENA regions and be a lever for peace and development in those areas.
German green MEP Rebecca Harms, who hosted the “Clean Power from Deserts” conference, said that the Greens “should start to think big” when it comes to renewables in general and solar in particular. She got the support from other MEPs such as Anders Wijkman and Vittorio Prodi for this initiative.
The DESERTEC project is led by a consortium called Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) which is an initiative of the Club of Rome. German technology group SCHOTT (the producer of solar receivers) has put its weight behind the solar farms idea.
Let’s be clear. I believe solar power is our best card for the future in a traditional-energy-scarce world (in view of peak energy and climate chaos), but I would like to see a few more questions being answered before embarking on a huge technology-fix experiment of what is basically a crisis of our industrial lifestyle due to the global population explosion.
Here are some of the questions I have:
- solar power is renewable but what about the materials needed to build this huge park of solar farms (steel, glass, concrete…)? Should we not calculate the whole life-cycle of this project?
- What about the environmental effects of these large solar farms in the deserts? Could there be dangers for the ecosystems there? Has there been an independent environmental impact study?
- what is the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of such a huge project?
- what about Europe’s energy resilience? If we would become dependent on these solar desert farms in the future, what about potential terrorist attacks or the danger of a solar OPEC?
- should Europe invest in this MENA supergrid or in smart decentralised electricity production?
In conclusion: this might indeed be the future of our energy and water security but before launching ourselves into it, let’s make sure we do not repeat the historical mistakes we once made with nuclear which was also once hailed as the beginning of a sustainable energy future.
Further reading:
- TREC: White Paper “Clean Power from Deserts”
- TREC: Action Plan presented in the European Parliament “An Apollo Programme for Energy, Water and Climate Security“
- Yahoo Tech Group: an interesting critical contribution on the DESERTEC project
Understand the issues you raise - all valid - so what are the answers? It is good to question and better to provide an alternative vision. How do we get to these answers? The “change” will needs many options to be followed simultaneously. This includes Nuclear.
Cheers,
Phil H
Here are some links with answers to your questions.
The energy payback time of concentrating solar power (CSP) plants is only about 6 months:
http://www.gezen.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/macroengineering-5.pdf
http://www.schott.com/solar/english/download/schott_memorandum_e.pdf
as compared to several years for photovoltaic (PV) systems:
http://www.pvresources.com/en/economics.php
Since the expected lifetime of CSP is the same as that of PV (over 25 years) the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) is several times higher.
In addition the materials needed to build CSP farms (mainly steel or aluminum and glass) are more easily recycled.
The question of security is discussed in
http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/csp/security.htm
Finally an interesting comment on costs:
http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar-politics/how-far-could-68b-go-in-securing-our-energy-independence-pretty-damn-far/
Thanks Andreas for pointing us to these documents.
Unfortunately, the sources you mention are to companies or organisations who have a stake in these solutions.
I would like to see some commercially independent studies on my questions.
Most research and development for concentrating solar power (CSP) has been done by public institutions such as the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) of the US Department of Energy, the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and the Plataforma Solar de Almería (PSA).
Other organizations which promote CSP as an alternative energy source are not suspect to have commercial interests:
The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) founded by The Club of Rome, the Hamburg Climate Protection Foundation and the National Energy Research Center of Jordan (NERC)
TREC-UK
Greenpeace: “Concentrated solar thermal power – now!”
Of course, many people, like Vinod Khosla, also have a commercial interest and think that CSP will soon become cheaper than coal.
BTW there is a study on the environmental impacts of CSP by DLR.
Dear Willy,
> The Promise Of Solar Energy - A Low-Carbon Energy Strategy for the 21st Century
United Nations Chronicle
un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2007/issue2/0207p63.htm
> “steel, glass, concrete” : GEZEN Foundation :
gezen.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/macroengineering-5.pdf (page 10)
> German Aerospace Center :
CSP and water :
dlr.de/tt/Portaldata/41/Resources/dokumente/institut/system/projects/aqua-csp/AQUA-CSP-Full-Report-Final.pdf
> SANDIA Laboratories :
energylan.sandia.gov/sunlab/PDFs/bigsolutions.pdf
” CSP is :
…proven, reliable technology. 354 megawatts (MW)
(enough for 100,000 homes) of CSP systems have operated successfully in the Southern California desert for the past decade. These solar electric generating system (SEGS) plants consistently operate as well as or better than when they were new.
…dispatchable. CSP plants with cost-effective storage or natural gas hybridization can deliver power to the utility grid when that power
is most needed, not just when the sun is shining. The SEGS plants peaking capacity routinely approaches 100%.
…competitively priced solar power. These existing CSP plants produce power now for as low as 12¢ per kilowatt hour (12¢/kWh) (including both capital and operating costs), with costs
dropping to as low as 5¢/kWh within 10 years as technology refinements and economies of scale are implemented. Independent assessments by the World Bank, ADLittle, the Electric Power Research Institute, and others have confirmed these cost projections. ”
> CSP-CLFR : you can cultivate under the mirrors…See Novatec-Biosol
objectifterre.over-blog.org/article-14064635.html
Best regards,
OD
Google va investir des centaines de millions de dollars dans le solaire à concentration (eSolar) :
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/11/towards-more-renewable-energy.html
Question 1 : “solar power is renewable but what about the materials needed to build this huge park of solar farms (steel, glass, concrete…)? Should we not calculate the whole life-cycle of this project? ”
Response :
- gezen.nl/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2007/01/macroengineering-5.pdf (page 10)
Question 2 : “What about the environmental effects of these large solar farms in the deserts? Could there be dangers for the ecosystems there? Has there been an independent environmental impact study?”
- No danger at all : just mirrors on desertic areas (the only danger is to cause a fire with the concentrated sunrays).
- With CLFR systems, you can cultivate under te mirrors in arid areas. A good point for biodiversity…
- With CSP plants you can produce freshwater (see AQUA CSP report, DLR). A very good point in arid areas.
Question 3 : “what is the energy return on energy invested (EROEI) of such a huge project? ”
Response : CSP Energy payback time : 5 months (Source : United Nations http://www.un.org/Pubs/chronicle/2007/issue2/0207p63.htm ).
Question 4 : “what about Europe’s energy resilience? If we would become dependent on these solar desert farms in the future, what about potential terrorist attacks or the danger of a solar OPEC? ”
Response : http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/csp/security.htm
Question : “should Europe invest in this MENA supergrid or in smart decentralised electricity production?”
Response : Climate change and Peak Oil are BIGs problems. We need BIGs solutions, technologies that scales. We need CSP plants and all the others Renewables Energies. We don’t have to think in an opposition way but in a complementary way.
Thank you Olivier,
your blog
http://objectifterre.over-blog.org/
is excellent and I can recommend it to everybody interested in clean energy solutions.
Thanks Andrea
PV Systems: the energy to produce them versus the energy they produce
http://www.leonardo-energy.org/drupal/node/895
Mid last year, EnergyBulletin produced a comprehensive review on the subject, shedding some light on why this issue continues to pop up:
- technology evolves: modern PV cells have a shorter payback than the ones produces 10 years ago
- climate is a factor: the payback will be double as fast in Australia or the Mediterranean compared to Northern Europe
The article quotes a range between 1 and 25 years for energy payback, but it’s safe to say that modern PV cells in reasonable locations have energy paybacks well within their lifetime.
I totally share all your questions and especially the last one, my answer being that our first goal should be to first massively invest in and develop smart decentralised energy. But we shouldn’t close the doors to such projects; I think that it’s worth assessing it. I prefer that than Sarkozy’s plan to sell nuclear power plants to all those countries.
Another point: I’m shoked to read “due to the global population explosion”; The problem is not the size of the population but more the way of life of all those people!You should read the very good article in the last “Le Monde Diplomatique” on Jared Diamond’s book “Collapse” and his freightening view on the “problem” of population explosion and the responsibility of the South in the global environmental problems.