Can the Desertec project provide the EU with green energy?
Posted by Dimitrios Matsoulis on December 21, 2007
Desertec is one of those huge projects that could have instant positive environmental impact. It is a proposal by TREC (Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation) an initiative between the EU, North Africa and the Middle East. The target is to provide Europe with about one sixth of its energy needs and the countries where production takes place with energy and much needed fresh water. It all works as follows:
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A huge area is covered by mirrors that concentrate light at the top of a very tall pylon.
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A closed circuit uses this concentrated energy to vaporise its water to superheated steam of about 800 degrees Celsius.
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The steam drives turbines that generate electricity, much like in a conventional plant.
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In order to condense the steam and start all over again, heat exchangers evaporate sea water, offering fresh desalinised water to the local population.
Such a production unit with a capacity of up to 100 MW would be duplicated 1000 times along the North African coast and the Middle East. Electricity would be channeled to the north Mediterranean coast via underwater cables to be connected to the EU grid. The EU would get about one third of the total production of 100 billion watts. The map below shows how TREC imagines a Euro-supergrid, linking together all sustainable energy sources:
The idea is attractive and in fact parts 1-3 above have been successfully tested recently in Seville’s solar power tower project. Even Google has similar plans with its partner eSolar. If all goes smoothly it is a win-win situation that has many backers. Europe will reduce emissions by a huge amount and producer countries will get both energy and critical fresh water supplies. An important drawback is the electricity generation cost of 0.15-0.20 euros per KWh, almost double that of a conventional plant. Even if scale gains and additional development brought the cost down, there is a strong voice of Desertec critics. They correctly point out that energy supply could be easily cut, as production regions are not stable enough and could turn hostile to the EU in the future. I would add that a critical advantage of solar energy is that it can be generated locally where energy is consumed, definitely not the case here. Also, oil can be easily stored and used as necessary, something not possible with energy. The recent adventure of the EUs dependence on Russian energy supplies means that with Desertec type projects in the future it could become almost completely energy dependent on others. My personal opinion is that Desertec is a brilliant project that comes in the wrong time and does not ease Europe’s energy fears. The EU would have to put in all the know-how and all the hard-to-gobble 7 billion euros that the project would cost, in the end getting only one third of the produced energy. Instead of treading on dangerous territory & complicated political bargaining I would instead prefer to see a similar project for south Europe…
Link 1: Inhabitat
Link 2: TREC
Link 3: Guardian
Michael said
There is a new world wide web emerging right before our eyes. It is a global energy network and, like the internet, it will change our culture, society and how we do business. More importantly, it will alter how we use, transform and exchange energy.
For more information, see http://www.terrawatts.com
electronrun said
Michael, thank you for the comment. Indeed, if flow of energy becomes as free as that of info currently on the internet it will indeed be a better world we will be living in. Of course none of us would like to have a new solar OPEC to control flow and prices.
Dimitrios
Gerry Wolff said
Thanks for this piece. A few comments:
* I think the idea that there could be some kind of solar OPEC that could cut off supplies at a whim is really misplaced. Europe already imports gas and oil from countries like Algeria and Libya and there is no sign of these supplies being suddenly cut off. When OPEC tried to jack up the price of oil in the 70s, it realised that it was shooting itself in the foot by damaging its investments in western economies. Lots of countries have hot deserts: it would be very hard to set up a solar cartel. The TRANS-CSP scenario would actually give Europe greater security of energy supplies than it has now. There is more information here: http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/csp/security.htm .
* CSP plants can be set up in southern Europe and there are some already operating in Spain. But very much larger amounts of energy can be captured further south and land is very much cheaper in the Sahara. So it makes better economic sense to set up CSP plants in countries like Morocco and Algeria.
There is more information here: http://www.trec-uk.org.uk/index.htm
Dimitrios Matsoulis said
Thanks for your comments and opinions Gerry. I believe that politics is critical to Desertec and its success, as in any project of such massive scale involving so many countries. We have of course to see how Desertec evolves, it is certainly a big hope that we can indeed find ways to generate environmentally friendly energy. I will follow online, but since you are directly involved with the project, if there are new developments I would be happy to receive email from you to add an update to this blog.
Dimitrios
Tugba said
I can suggest you a similar project for South Europe is called “Wave Energy” ! You only need is and as South Europe you have already had is SEA..With the waves low tide and high tide actions; it generates energy to pump seawater onto land at high enough pressures to drive a reverse osmosis desalination plant as well as hydroelectricity turbines (they are called pelton turbines). As you now on the world the greenest and the cheapest energy producing system is hydroelectric power plants but with this project you are not also limited with the rivers or geographic conditions..You can look up this link http://www.ceto.com.au and with this project as South Europe you should not worry about “critical advantage of solar energy ” …:)
Dimitrios Matsoulis said
Tugba thank you for your comment. The Mediterranean has indeed potential for sea energy production and of course all those different projects and ideas are much needed. It is in my opinion very likely that future energy production will be diversified to use all possible sources. Green energy is an extremely interesting subject and future posts will cover more energy production methods like CETO that you suggested.
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Blessed Sun said
Note that Desertec’s major backers are huge global conglomerates with interests in the traditional, centralized distribution of electricity.
I suspect that the success of off grid and grid-tied PV systems has begun to threaten their power, and this exhorbitant project with its unresolved geo-political complexities is the perfect way to get control back.
The PR campaign for Desertec has been very aggressive, and it is very hard to find articles that EXPLAIN exactly how things will work, how they will be funded, and who will have ownership of the plants. Instead, one stumbles constantly upon numerous replications of Desertec’s own press releases, using their projections, their figures and their promises.
IMHO, Desertec tech is another white elephant begging to be shot down. Europe needs to curb wasteful power consumption, and also let the PV and feed-in-tariff system that has made many net generators of energy continue to give consumers independence and control. The Middle-East and North Africa is a geopolitical mess, and it is unlikely that the prospects of generating Europe’s electricity will unite the volatile region.
Dimitrios Matsoulis said
I cannot help but agree that the geopolitical complexity is huge and Europeans would not (understandably) want to rely on regimes and countries that are unstable and unpredictable.
The Desertec project is more like an exercise of “what could be done” rather what will be done, and certainly limiting consumption is a good start till more projects get going on European soil.
Thank you for your comments.
Blessed Sun said
Thank you Dimitrios for your reply
I looked again at your original text and noticed that you place the costs of Desrtec at 7 billion Euros. The figure that has been mentioned in all writings is 400 billion. To put is in perspective, Germany’s PV-based program so far has cost only 80 billion, and has already attained a 15% share of the country’s energy.
Another point that needs to be analysed is the water management. If the project uses sea-water to work and then produces desalinated water, how do they plan to deal with the by-products of that process? We are talking about huge amounts of solid salt or concentrated salt-water, which cannot simply be dumped back into the delicate marine environment.