Desertec (http://www.desertec.org/) is a very interesting and simple concept. It can play a large part in the future of energy and can provide a solution for today’s problems.

The idea is simple, take the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. Put renewable power plants in all of them, each depending on what resource they have, and connect them all together with high voltage DC transmission lines.

The Middle East and north Africa have a lot of desert, and deserts have a lot of sun, and the sun has a lot of energy. Now let’s put many of those solar thermal power plants (Wikipedia) in the dessert and we are generating a lot of electricity out of the desert. Land that’s barely used and I doubt anyone would be missing it. The land area available is also massive and taking Egypt as an example, we can find 300 Watts per square metre coming out of the sky, and there is rarely a cloud to be seen.

So what about Europe? The western coast of Europe has substantial wind power. A country like the UK is the windiest in Europe. Spain also has substantial solar capabilities. There are some geothermal sources scattered across Europe as well.

So now we have the deserts with their solar power, the western european coast with wind and geothermal scattered all over. Connect all those together and you have a super grid of renewables. So what’s the point of connecting them all together and sending the electricity over thousands of kilometers?

Well, renewables are intermittent, the sun is not always as powerful and the wind is not always as strong. So if we connect all those renewables there is a chance that when the wind is not as strong as we want it to be in Europe, the sun will be a bit more powerful in the Middle East. And the more sources we connect the better chance we have of meeting our collective needs for electricity.

Another reason is that while most of the electricity is expected to be generated in the deserts, most of the consumption will not be there. Europe, being far more developed than North Africa, means that they will require more electricity. However North Africa would have an abundance of electricity that it will be willing to sell to Europe.

So now this seems to be working well for everyone on many different levels. The whole world will emitt less pollutants as we use more renewables. Europe will then be on its way to achieve the targets it has set itself as well as the kyoto targets it needs to acheieve in emissions. North Africa and the Middle East will be making money out of the deserts and will have clean electricity to fuel their development. Energy securty will be highly improved as we add more sources and connect them all together. Europe will be importing its electricity from many more sources than today and shouldn’t be as worried about political instability.

So overall, it seems like a good idea. What do you think?