Could the Saharan Desert be the Solution to a Global Energy Crisis?

DISCUSSION: Over the past few decades, there has continued to be a rather heated global debate between global energy companies and various atmospheric as well as energy scientists from around the world on what the future holds in store for mankind here on Earth.  There is no question that mankind’s future remains in question due to the consistent monthly, annual, and even decadal increases in global energy demands. This can primarily be attributed to the faster-paced lifestyles which hundreds of millions of people are becoming increasingly more and more used to with time because of how communication and interactions continue to evolve with time between people.

Having said that, regardless of how the world, communication, and energy demands evolve, there is still a major need to address these global energy problems before they grow to an extent at which humanity would not be able to fix it. For starters, the first step in solving a problem is recognizing in the first place that there is a problem which needs to be fixed.  Thus, through establishing that there is a developing global energy crisis, one can begin to work to find ways to solve it through various methods. Among the various methods by which this can be accomplished, some researchers over at the University of California-Berkeley, there has been in-depth research focused on evaluating how and to what extent ultraviolet radiation from the Earth’s Sun and outgoing long-wave radiation emanating from the Saharan Desert may help to power the world’s energy needs. Attached below is an exact excerpt from the article written by Dr. Mehran Moalem from the University of California-Berkeley who is an expert on Nuclear Materials and Nuclear Fuel Cycle which helps to explain his findings in the context of energy extraction for various global energy needs from the Saharan Desert.

“Now, if we cover an area of the Earth 335 kilometers by 335 kilometers with solar panels, even with moderate efficiencies achievable easily today, it will provide more than 17.4 TW power. This area is 43,000 square miles. The Great Saharan Desert in Africa is 3.6 million square miles and is prime for solar power (more than twelve hours per day). That means 1.2% of the Sahara Desert is sufficient to cover all of the energy needs of the world in solar energy. There is no way coal, oil, wind, geothermal or nuclear can compete with this. The cost of the project will be about five trillion dollars, one-time cost at today’s prices without any economy of scale savings.”

Thus, it goes without saying that there are most certainly ways that man-kind have work to solve global energy problems and mitigate stresses on remaining non-renewable Earth resources. It is just a matter of figuring out what the world’s priorities are and what sort of condition we aspire Earth to be in for years, decades, centuries, and millennia to come.

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© 2018 Meteorologist Jordan Rabinowitz