Desertec Industrial Initiative recently held a web seminar featuring Paul Van Son and Driss Beraho. The first short presentation by Son was about what the Desertec Industrial Initiative is up to lately. We learn that the vision now exceeds green electrons and has expanded to include green molecules. That is hydrogen made from renewable energyContinue reading “Neom Helios Desert Energy Project”
Category Archives: Energy from the desert
Desertec not Outdated
I just heard about Mr. Abdelmadjid Attar, since the North Africa Post reported about his views on the Desertec project. He is quoted like this: “The Desertec project is outdated. Let’s forget it,” Being of the opinion that the world is in urgent need of massive solar projects, including in the North African deserts, IContinue reading “Desertec not Outdated”
Nothing Wrong With EEG Payments Running Out After 20 Years
The German Law on Priority for Renewable Energy started out 20 years ago. The basic concept was paying a fixed price for renewable energy for 20 years. That price was calculated to make sure people could make a profit over those 20 years. Now that the first installations under that law are falling out ofContinue reading “Nothing Wrong With EEG Payments Running Out After 20 Years”
German Hydrogen Strategy
According to this Handelsblatt article by Klaus Stratman, the German Cabinet will approve the Hydrogen Strategy that has been discussed for some time now tomorrow. I have been writing lots of posts about hydrogen on this blog over the years. So I welcome the fact that Germany will put some effort in getting green hydrogenContinue reading “German Hydrogen Strategy”
Desertec Progressing Nicely
Ed Reed at Energy Voice just posted on plans of the MENA region to get a head start into the market for exporting green hydrogen. The idea is to build large scale solar power stations, then use those to generate CO2-free clean hydrogen for the export market. The article contains lots of quotes from PaulContinue reading “Desertec Progressing Nicely”
DLD 2020 Bitcoin Energy Panel
There was some informed comment on how bitcoin mining helps with solving the climate emergency, as opposed to being a part of the problem. The conference for this panel was the “DLD Munich”, which means “Digital Life Design”. It was founded in 2005, is backed by a large German media company, and attracts a lotContinue reading “DLD 2020 Bitcoin Energy Panel”
Shade from Desert Solar Panels
This Bloomberg article describes one of the largest solar panel projects of the world, with a scale of 2 GW built in China. I learned from that article that putting large numbers of solar panels in an arid area has another benefit I wasn’t aware of. From the article: Shade provided by the project’s panelsContinue reading “Shade from Desert Solar Panels”
Mojave Desert Project
Good news from the United States: The Obama administration is coming up with a “Desert Renewable Energy Conservation Plan”, according to Carolyn Lochhead at the San Francisco Chronicle. That plan would make available up to 2,000 square miles of desert public land available for large scale solar development. Of course some “environmentalists” worried more aboutContinue reading “Mojave Desert Project”
Kees van der Leun Was Wrong
He wrote five years ago that solar would be the cheapest option by 2018, expecting it to go below 6 cents a kWh by that time. Now Bloomberg reports on the latest auction results in Mexico, where solar averaged 4.05 cents. That beats wind, which averaged 4.39 cents in the same auction. And it beatsContinue reading “Kees van der Leun Was Wrong”
Report on Dii
The German “Tagesspiegel” has published an article about what the “Desertec industrial initiative” has been up to lately (in German). We learn that the number of shareholders has been reduced to three: RWE, ACWA, and SGCC. The latter is the world’s largest utility and based in China, which will be convenient for all Desertec workContinue reading “Report on Dii”
