By 2050, around 10 billion people will inhabit the Earth. They will need food, water, energy and other resources.
Within 6 hours, the deserts of the world receive more energy from the sun than humanity consumes in an entire year.
Far from being useless wastelands as some would believe, even the most lifeless deserts are huge, untapped power sources that can help meet the energy needs of today and into the future.
In order to meet today‘s global power demand of 18,000 TWh/year, three thousandths of the world‘s deserts (about 90,000 km2) could be utilised for solar farms – it would take about 20 square meters of desert to meet the individual power needs of one human being.
While deserts don’t exist in every country; over 90% of the world‘s population live within 3,000 km of one.
Not so long ago, it seemed a pipe dream – to supply Europe with clean energy from solar farms in Africa. That dream inched towards reality a couple of days ago when 12 major companies signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Munich to establish the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative (DII).
The objective of the DII is to analyse and develop the technical, economic, political, social and ecological framework for carbon-free power generation in the deserts of North Africa.
The ultimate goal of DESERTEC is to produce sufficient power in North Africa to meet around 15% of Europe’s electricity requirements and a substantial portion of the power needs of the countries where the massive solar farms will be established.
Learn more about the DESERTEC initiative.
