How The Sahara Could Power The Entire World

[TomTom + 183]

Thought that I heard the concept before, but just read this article from Leonard Hyman and William Tilles

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/How-The-Sahara-Could-Power-The-Entire-World.html

Especially the fact that solar panels in the Sahara could attract more rain to the desert is really interesting...

Any chance European or Chinese companies are keen to develop this incredibly ambitious concept? 

[J Owens + 45]

Unfortunately the bottleneck is still in energy storage and power grids. A fascinating concept though, call Elon - he might be on board!

[Guillaume Albasini + 851]

The DESERTEC concept has evolved since 2009. It was initially created to export to Europe the electricity produced in the Sahara but given the technical challenge of the long distance power transfer under the Sea the more recent version is more focused on using the power produced for the north African countries.

Algeria for instance could use this solar energy rather than oil and gas for domestic consumption and could have more oil and gas to export.

This project could also create jobs in Africa and contribute to a reduction of the migration to Europe.

But beside the technical problems there is also a major security problem to overcome in a region where several terrorists groups are based (ISIS, AQMI...) and could easily target the solar farms or power lines.