Carbon-free energy from desert power

THE Energy, Politic and Poverty report from Oxford University provides a strategy that sits well with the “power from deserts” concept developed for the Club of Rome by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) international network of scientists and engineers.

Using the proven, mature technology of concentrating solar power (CSP), hot deserts in the Middle East and north Africa could provide large amounts of carbon-free electricity for those two areas and the whole of Europe.

CSP offers substantial additional benefits to host countries, including desalination of sea water as a by-product of power generation, and horticulture in areas of desert which would otherwise be unproductive. It may thus have a major role to play in alleviating some of the negative impacts of climate change.