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The Guardian: How Africa's desert sun can bring Europe power (December 2 2007)
A £5bn solar power plan, backed by a Jordanian prince, could provide the EU with a sixth of its electricity needs - and cut carbon emissions

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Europe is considering plans to spend more than £5bn on a string of giant solar power stations along the Mediterranean desert shores of northern Africa and the Middle East.

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Last week Prince Hassan bin Talal of Jordan presented details of the scheme - named Desertec - to the European Parliament. 'Countries with deserts, countries with high energy demand, and countries with technology competence must co-operate,' he told MEPs.



A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 4th, 2008 at 08:33:48 AM EST
[ Parent ]
yup, this is being more and more talked about, do you think anyone is really serious about doing more than talk?

we could make hydrogen from wind also.

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Sep 4th, 2008 at 08:40:25 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Hydrogen is a very dumb choice of synthetic fuel in any event (gaseous and very flammable - needs to be stored under pressure or super-cooled). How about Dimethyl Ether?

A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 4th, 2008 at 08:53:41 AM EST
[ Parent ]
Boils at -23C? Isn't that going to make storage, transport and tanking only slightly less interesting than for hydrogen?
by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Thu Sep 4th, 2008 at 12:19:00 PM EST
[ Parent ]
250 K boiling point against 20K boiling point. Put in the fact, that cooling becomes more difficult the cooler you want it, and that heating up is proportional to the difference with the environemt - in one case ~50K on a hot day in the other ~ 250K with frost.

This is a dimension different.

Der Amerikaner ist die Orchidee unter den Menschen
Volker Pispers

by Martin (weiser.mensch(at)googlemail.com) on Thu Sep 4th, 2008 at 12:38:38 PM EST
[ Parent ]
The way Francois in Paris put it is
Its handling is similar to LPG and it can be stored as a liquid in low pressure tanks. Big difference with methane (very high pressures or cryo).
Hydrogen also requires "very high pressures or cryo". Think butane cans...

A vivid image of what should exist acts as a surrogate for reality. Pursuit of the image then prevents pursuit of the reality -- John K. Galbraith
by Migeru (migeru at eurotrib dot com) on Thu Sep 4th, 2008 at 12:41:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
doesn't it seep through any container trying to hold it too?

don't the cars run off some kind of hydrogen pellets?

~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Thu Sep 4th, 2008 at 04:08:06 PM EST
[ Parent ]

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