DESERTEC: Clean power from deserts for a sustainable world with 10 billion people

Summary on a proposed

Solution of Energy vs. Climate

by Gerhard Knies, DESERTEC Project Director for the Club of Rome,
Gerhard.knies@desertec.org, 08-2008, at the Global Economic Symposium GES2008, Kiel/Plön,

DESERTEC:
Clean power from deserts for a sustainable world with 10 billion people

The world’s natural resources are overused already, by 6 billion people. Is the world ready to host 10 billion? They are on their way. Most of them live already now.

Time is tight to get ready for 10 billion. Affordable and sufficient water, food and energy as well as a stable economy and climate are indispensible preconditions for civilized life, and for limiting the further growth of world population by wealth. With enough energy enough water can be desalinated, and with enough water enough food can be grown. Enough and clean energy is key for a future of humankind with 10 billion.

1. Neither fossil nor nuclear fuels can supply affordable and sufficient energy in the long run because of limited resources and of destructive pollution. Their continued or even expanded use for an intermediate period puts at risk the global living conditions on earth, by climate change, by economic collapse and by risk of abuse of radioactive materials.
2. If organized properly, full supply of energy and stabi¬lization of climate can be achieved simultaneously by a rapid transition, i.e. within about 3 decades, to almost 100 (“90+”)% renewable energy resources. In other words: energy, economic and climate security can be achieved with available technologies from known renewable energy sources within a time frame possibly sufficient for avoiding climate change tipping points.

These conclusions can be inferred from 3 studies, con¬ducted by DLR (German Aerospace Center) and TREC (Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Co¬operation) for the German Government during 2004 to 2007, which investigated the potential of solar energy from deserts in the MENA region for energy and water secu¬rity in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Their findings (www.desertec.org) and the geography of deserts on earth, allow for devising a solution for how the looming global energy, economic and climate crises can be tackled.

Basics for the DESERTEC Concept:

1. The sunny desert belts north and south of the trop¬ics extent around the globe, cover about 40 mil¬lion km² and receive within half a day (6 hours) more energy from the sun than humankind uses in a year.
2. With the technology of concentrating solar ther¬mal power (CSTP) plants more than 15% of solar energy can be converted into electricity, yielding 1 Terawatt hour (TWh) per year from a desert area of app. 5 km².
3. World electricity consumption now is 18,000TWh/y, requiring 90,000 km² for collector space: this is 0.2% of all desert space.
4. Most other energy services, like heating and transporta¬tion, can be based on electricity.
5. Via HVDC (High Voltage Direct Current) long-dis¬tance (i.e. several 1000 km) low-loss (i.e. app. 3%/1000km) transmission lines, more than 90% of world population can be served by clean power from deserts – mainly solar but also wind - in supplement to clean power from other places and other renewa¬ble sources like wind, PV, hydro, geothermal, tidal, wave, etc., and in combination with intelligent demand side measures (Super SmartGrid).
6. From extra stored solar heat, “solar” steam for the CSTP plants can also be produced at night, and also at day time, allowing for power delivery by demand at any time.
7. With present collector technologies solar steam is competitive with steam generated from oil at oil prices of app. 80$/barrel.
8. For close to 10 billion people with a per capita power consumption of 5 Megawatt hours per year, a global collector capacity for 10,000 Gigawatts is re¬quired for the supply of a 50% share of clean power from deserts.
9. This capacity can be produced and installed by industry until 2040, if a targeted effort for mass pro¬duction (1 Gigawatt per day) is launched now: the DESERTEC-Implementation Program.

How to launch the DESERTEC Concept?

The looming risks of global ecological and economic collapse avalanches call for a global emergency program for the transition to secure and clean energies with highest urgency. Ecological and economic security should be given the same priority as national security. With less than 1% of present military expenses (from app. 1,000 billion €/y) spent now for “security”, as kick-off money for a CSTP commercialization and industrial mass production capacity build-up phase, such DESERTEC-Implementation Program can be launched within 10 years. Resources, technology and money for launching the clean power from deserts concept are existing.

Since a late launch and completion puts lives and living condi¬tions of 10 billion people at risk, an international alliance for energy, economic and climate security should be organized with highest priority. The recently established Union for the Mediterranean could make a first step by implementing the DESERTEC Concept in the EUMENA region as part of the Solar Plan. Also global energy and climate secu¬rity can be reached and ensured from inexhaustible sources. The DESERTEC Foundation is working to these ends.

Elements of a DESERTEC-Implementation Program

1. Production of a world-wide solar radiation atlas, with proper spatial and timely resolution, for free access (10 Mio €).
2. Deployment programs for CSTP demonstration power plants with promising collector technologies, and with desalination in coge¬neration, in about 10 MENA countries. (10 bn €, within 5 years)
3. Immediately: build a 10 MW demo plant “power and water for Gaza”.
4. Studies of supergrid connections for wind and solar from deserts to regions of high demand: EU-MENA and Sub-Saharan region in the frame of the Solar Plan of UfM, and also for South Africa, India, USA, China, Australia-Pacific, South America. (20 Mio. €)
5. Planning + erection of first HVDC transmission lines in several regions as infrastructure for global energy, economic and climate secu¬rity. (20 bn €, 10 years).
6. Studies on mass production methods for CSTP collectors and deployment. (10 Mio €)
7. Support for investments into facilities for collector mass pro¬duction and deployment. (10 bn €, 10 years).

The purpose of financial support is to make clean power from deserts cheaper than electricity from new nuclear and coal+CCS power plants, and to achieve a collector production rate of 1 GW/day within 10 years.

It should be noted, that mass production of collectors could to a large extent go to the same industries that produce military equipment today.

At the level of expenses of 1000 billion /year for very questionable military measures for security, we are asking for peanuts! Therefore: Get energy, economic and climate security first – for 40 bn € in total – and that would make military expenses almost superfluous!

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