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International News Title: Renewable Solar Energy for Europe from Libya's Desert! I was visiting England this summer when it was experiencing very un-seasonal rains leading to heavy flooding in parts of the country. Having just landed from hot Tripoli, I noted how the airport was packed full of Britons wishing to escape the UK summer rain for hot Mediterranean destinations. I was thinking what a funny world we live in. We in Libya wish for more of Britain's rain while the British were seeking our hotter sunnier climate. If only they could transport their rain to irrigate our huge land mass and if only we could send them some sunshine during their summer season! Well, this may not be such an outlandish concept if scientists have their way. The principle of re-distribution from areas of high production/supply and low demand to areas of lower production/supply or higher demand is not new. The idea of pipelines transporting oil or gas from the site of production to the site of consumption is certainly not a new idea to the oil-producing Arab world. Nor is the concept of electricity being transported from one nation to another. The Great Man-made River Project is another good example long distance transport. The July issue of the Arab Water World magazine (www.awwmag.com) reports of a new study commissioned by the German Government showing how Europe can meet its future needs in electricity, cut emissions of carbon dioxide from electricity generation by 70% by 2050 and phase-out nuclear power at the same time - all involving the deserts of the MENA (Middle East & North Africa) region. The fundamental science of the concept is based upon the concentration of sunlight using mirrors to create heat which can be used to create steam and drive a generator in the conventional way. This has been used successfully in California to produce electricity for twenty years. Moreover, simple reflective solar cookers have also been used and encouraged by development agencies in the developing world for years. Experts tell us that each square kilometer of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil every year. That is roughly Libya's annual oil production. If this equation was to be multiplied by the area of the deserts of all the MENA regions it would be nearly a thousand times the entire current energy consumption of the whole world, the report says! The cost of collecting solar thermal energy equivalent to one barrel of oil is estimated currently at about US$ 50, which is still deemed relatively high. However, it is already lower than the current world prices of oil hovering around the US$ 70 – 90 mark. Moreover, this cost is expected to fall to around US$ 20 in years to come. The key to the economics of this study is that the technology is getting cheaper, and if oil supplies decrease and oil prices continue to increase this idea would become very feasible. Equally, what makes this idea of transporting electricity to as far as northern Europe even more economically realistic is the low leakage rates. That is, for each 1000 km that electricity is transported along wires, only about 3% is lost. So as an approximate example, if we said electricity were to be transported from say Libya to the UK, only 10% to 15% of power would be lost. This is apparently considered a very acceptable loss in the industry when compared to other conventional power transmission methods where the loss can exceed 50%. There is no doubt that if such science were to be realized in a low or no-oil era, this would be of great benefit to both producers and consumers. Europe is a high energy demand region and the MENA region could have a cheap and local source of energy to live off and to use for desalination for the water needed if civilization were to survive in a post oil era in our desert regions. It would be a renewable, environmentally clean, and safe source of energy – an alternative to nuclear fuel. Moreover, since this report came out, there has been some encouraging progress in Libya on the practical front regarding the issue of solar power. In October this year (as reported by the Tripoli Post in issue 171) the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced that it was sending a team of experts from its National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Colorado to collaborate on concentrating solar power in Libya. The DOE confirmed that Libya, with its low humidity and numerous sunny days, had the ideal conditions for the possible exploitation of solar power technologies. This is indeed encouraging news. Libya has an area of almost 1.8 million square kilometres, 90% of which is hot sunny desert. Libya, through its proximity to mainland Europe, already supplies Europe energy by pipeline via the Greenstream pipeline - the longest sub-sea pipeline in the Mediterranean. If this new technology is realized, it would hopefully put Libya in the centre of any future post-oil era energy industry. It is up to Libya to try to exploit its natural advantages and create a niche - a comparative advantage – for itself in this solar energy sector. This way it will use some of its oil-derived income of today to hopefully secure a future for Libyans tomorrow.
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