Solar Power - the most well known source of renewable energy
It is a very appealing idea to make use of the sun's beams in order to generate electricity. And since 1958 this technology has been applied on numerous space missions. And thanks to the Oil crisis in the nineteen seventies you can actually buy one for your house. However solar panels are not solar panels, since there are various approaches to generate electricity.
The most common solar panels are called photovoltaic cells as they can directly transform sunlight into electricity. Basically the way they works is that the energy from the sunlight is spliting the atoms into electrons, protons and neutrons. After that they are torn apart with the help of different layers in the panel that will only let electrons pass. And as a result of that you will have moving electrons, which is what the common man refers to as electricity.
However there are a couple of disadvantages with this technology to be honest. One is that the efficiency of these cells is actually quite bad. During the process of transforming the energy in the sun beams into electricity about 76-83% of the energy is lost. To give you a comparison the efficiency of a coal power plant is about 31% (http://www.energie-fakten.de/pdf/wirkungsgrade.pdf ).
In addition to that the second problem is that you really depend on good weather in a whole new way, since you obviously can not generate electricity from the sun, if the weather is all cloudy. And at night you will hardly have any electricity at all.
So the challenge resulting from that is to make solar panels more efficient on the one sight and to implicate them into a system that can compensate for their 'unreliability'. Luckily though it looks like we have already done so, or at least some of us did . . .
The most common solar panels are called photovoltaic cells as they can directly transform sunlight into electricity. Basically the way they works is that the energy from the sunlight is spliting the atoms into electrons, protons and neutrons. After that they are torn apart with the help of different layers in the panel that will only let electrons pass. And as a result of that you will have moving electrons, which is what the common man refers to as electricity.
However there are a couple of disadvantages with this technology to be honest. One is that the efficiency of these cells is actually quite bad. During the process of transforming the energy in the sun beams into electricity about 76-83% of the energy is lost. To give you a comparison the efficiency of a coal power plant is about 31% (http://www.energie-fakten.de/pdf/wirkungsgrade.pdf ).
In addition to that the second problem is that you really depend on good weather in a whole new way, since you obviously can not generate electricity from the sun, if the weather is all cloudy. And at night you will hardly have any electricity at all.
So the challenge resulting from that is to make solar panels more efficient on the one sight and to implicate them into a system that can compensate for their 'unreliability'. Luckily though it looks like we have already done so, or at least some of us did . . .
Desertec - a project that leads us to the future !?
Now if you want to generate electricity from the sunlight you will need to find a location where the sun is shining very often, long and intense, so a pretty promising place to install solar panels would be the deserts, since we do have an awful lot of deserts on our planet and we would not even need a tenth of all the earth's desert to supply the electricity demanded by the whole world as a foundation called Desertec found out.
The Desertec foundation is a project that goes back to one man - german physicist Gerhard Knies, who in the nineteen nineties got the idea that solar thermal power plants in the deserts might be they way to go in order to solve our energy problems.
Unlike their photovoltaic cousins solar thermal panels do not directly transform sunlight into electricity using a high tech physical reaction. Instead of that they just use mirrors to concentrate the sunbeams on one small point and in doing so they create temperatures of up to 500 degrees Celsius. This enormous heat is than used to power a conventional turbine or a so called Stirling engine, which is plainly explained a modified steam engine. And here is the clever bit. The Warmth of the sunlight can actually be saved during the night, so after the panels have 'collected the warmth of the sun for one day they can actually keep generating electricity throughout the night, which is a massive improvement compared to the Photovoltaic system. (http://www.desertec.org/en/concept/technologies/ )
Gerhard Knies based his thesis on a study by the german aerospace department who presented a study, whose basic message was that if we would install solar thermal plants in all our deserts we would be able to generate 40 times more electricity than the whole society consumed at that time (http://www.stern.de/wissen/technik/3-desertec-erfinder-gerhard-knies-der-wuestenstrom-pionier-1504436.html).
If you take a look at the map below the red squares tell you how much desert you would need to cover with solar panels to generate as much electricity as the whole society consumed in 2005.
However back then, fossil fuels made no sign of taking an end in their sustainability and climate change was a phrase hardly used by anyone who was taken serious by the general public. But Knies carried on and presented his project in 2003 to the Club of Rome a think tank formed by scientists, business men and former statesmen. While the majority was rather sceptic there were some that trusted Knies and his idea of electricity from the sun. Together they formed the TREC foundation which means Trans Mediterranean Renewable Energy Corporation and that is a perfect summary of what TREC was all about.
And what they finally came up with is this the EUMENA project a big energy supply system based only on renewable sources of energy. The basic idea of this project is to use various sources of renewable energy in order to compensate for the downsides which would occur if the various technologies would be run separately. Thus the foundation can guarantee a constant electricity supply.
As one would imagine from both the map and the name this project involves Europe ( EU ), the Middle East ( ME ) and Northern Africa ( NA ), and since it is capable of generating enough electricity to supply two thirds of the Middle East's and Northern Africa's energy demand plus approximately 15 percent of Europe's total need of electricity it is actually very attractive to all three.
And together with the energy project itself there are several other benefits for all countries taking part in EUMENA, like for example the so called Desertec University Network, which is a collaboration of 18 universities in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Founded in 2010 it's aim is to constantly improve the technologies for EUMENA and to guarantee a relatively equal state of the art in the participating countries.(http://www.desertec.org/global-mission/eu-mena/)
The Desertec foundation is a project that goes back to one man - german physicist Gerhard Knies, who in the nineteen nineties got the idea that solar thermal power plants in the deserts might be they way to go in order to solve our energy problems.
Unlike their photovoltaic cousins solar thermal panels do not directly transform sunlight into electricity using a high tech physical reaction. Instead of that they just use mirrors to concentrate the sunbeams on one small point and in doing so they create temperatures of up to 500 degrees Celsius. This enormous heat is than used to power a conventional turbine or a so called Stirling engine, which is plainly explained a modified steam engine. And here is the clever bit. The Warmth of the sunlight can actually be saved during the night, so after the panels have 'collected the warmth of the sun for one day they can actually keep generating electricity throughout the night, which is a massive improvement compared to the Photovoltaic system. (http://www.desertec.org/en/concept/technologies/ )
Gerhard Knies based his thesis on a study by the german aerospace department who presented a study, whose basic message was that if we would install solar thermal plants in all our deserts we would be able to generate 40 times more electricity than the whole society consumed at that time (http://www.stern.de/wissen/technik/3-desertec-erfinder-gerhard-knies-der-wuestenstrom-pionier-1504436.html).
If you take a look at the map below the red squares tell you how much desert you would need to cover with solar panels to generate as much electricity as the whole society consumed in 2005.
However back then, fossil fuels made no sign of taking an end in their sustainability and climate change was a phrase hardly used by anyone who was taken serious by the general public. But Knies carried on and presented his project in 2003 to the Club of Rome a think tank formed by scientists, business men and former statesmen. While the majority was rather sceptic there were some that trusted Knies and his idea of electricity from the sun. Together they formed the TREC foundation which means Trans Mediterranean Renewable Energy Corporation and that is a perfect summary of what TREC was all about.
And what they finally came up with is this the EUMENA project a big energy supply system based only on renewable sources of energy. The basic idea of this project is to use various sources of renewable energy in order to compensate for the downsides which would occur if the various technologies would be run separately. Thus the foundation can guarantee a constant electricity supply.
As one would imagine from both the map and the name this project involves Europe ( EU ), the Middle East ( ME ) and Northern Africa ( NA ), and since it is capable of generating enough electricity to supply two thirds of the Middle East's and Northern Africa's energy demand plus approximately 15 percent of Europe's total need of electricity it is actually very attractive to all three.
And together with the energy project itself there are several other benefits for all countries taking part in EUMENA, like for example the so called Desertec University Network, which is a collaboration of 18 universities in the Middle East and Northern Africa. Founded in 2010 it's aim is to constantly improve the technologies for EUMENA and to guarantee a relatively equal state of the art in the participating countries.(http://www.desertec.org/global-mission/eu-mena/)
What about the rest of the world ?
Although the Desertec concept was at first designed to fit specifically for the application in Northern Africa and the Middle East, they have started to develop a way to duplicate this project in order to make it applicable all over the world. Below here you can see a map showing all suitable locations for the installation of solar thermal power plants.
As we see there are numerous places on earth suitable for a desert-based solar energy supply system, like Australia, China. South America or the United States. Concluding from this the Desertec foundation has built up a great concept that uses renewable sources of energy only, even in such an efficient way that the different sources help out each other to guarantee a constant energy supply.
Not only do they offer a sustainable energy system but as well as that support for the local and national universities and students participating in the project and contributing to its development.
Sources:
1. http://www.geotimes.org/apr08/article.html?id=feature_solar.html
2. http://www.desertec.org/global-mission/eu-mena/
3. http://www.stern.de/wissen/technik/3-desertec-erfinder-gerhard-knies-der-wuestenstrom-pionier-1504436.html
Not only do they offer a sustainable energy system but as well as that support for the local and national universities and students participating in the project and contributing to its development.
Sources:
1. http://www.geotimes.org/apr08/article.html?id=feature_solar.html
2. http://www.desertec.org/global-mission/eu-mena/
3. http://www.stern.de/wissen/technik/3-desertec-erfinder-gerhard-knies-der-wuestenstrom-pionier-1504436.html