[Technology] Should we turn the Sahara Desert into a huge solar farm?

[Questions]

The sun is currently halfway through it's life span.
I believe time is on our side.

It’s still half past something though Stat.

 

[drew]

One massive directional mirror in the sahara.
One massive "collector" mirror in the UK.
Point the first mirror in the direction of the second.
Problem solved. Just route planes around the "death" ray.
I saw something like it in a James Bond film.

Curvature of the Earth!!

Simple solution is to have a massive geostationary mirror in space to bounce the beam off. Of course that means there are now two death rays to avoid!

 

[Doonhamer7]

Renewable energy is the future but not how you may think! The best renewable locations aren’t near large conurbations - therefore the energy loss in transfer makes it uneconomically. So think the Sahara for solar and off western Hebrides for wind - miles from anywhere. So instead of transporting the electricity, carry out a chemical reaction at site and create hydrogen and/or ammonia. Now hydrogen isn’t very transportable (As it doesn’t compress and freezes at -250c) so we can’t transport it like liquified natural gas (-160c). So create the ammonia (NH3) and then transport to place of use, convert ammonia back to hydrogen and nitrogen (no carbon). hydrogen is then used in powering gas turbines (they do need conversion) or into gas main ( I think in the NW they are mixing 20% hydrogen into a gas network as at this level no boiler mods reqd), then cars will be a combination of electric and hydrogen. Problem is it’s more expensive than natural gas so it will come down to rebates/tariffs by governments. Japan, South Korea leading the way and the EU is talking about €billions of investment to go carbon free by 2030. Initial work may be a combination of green ammonia (as above) plus blue ammonia but no grey ammonia (I’m not sure the full difference but some involve hydrocarbons). So the UK being very windy (and offshore having more constant dependable wind than onshore) could put huge offshore wind farms in so we are not reliant on others for our energy future, as the conversion means we’ll have storage, so not stuffed on a still day. Otherwise you could just build new nuclear power stations and do a bit of fracking

 

[portlock seagull]

It hasn’t stopped the Chinese, their investments and contracts in sub-Saharan Africa totalled $299 billion from 2005 to 2018.

On top of that they have provided $130 billion in loans to African nations since 2000.

For energy?

 

[Billy the Fish]

Renewable energy is the future but not how you may think! The best renewable locations aren’t near large conurbations - therefore the energy loss in transfer makes it uneconomically. So think the Sahara for solar and off western Hebrides for wind - miles from anywhere. So instead of transporting the electricity, carry out a chemical reaction at site and create hydrogen and/or ammonia. Now hydrogen isn’t very transportable (As it doesn’t compress and freezes at -250c) so we can’t transport it like liquified natural gas (-160c). So create the ammonia (NH3) and then transport to place of use, convert ammonia back to hydrogen and nitrogen (no carbon). hydrogen is then used in powering gas turbines (they do need conversion) or into gas main ( I think in the NW they are mixing 20% hydrogen into a gas network as at this level no boiler mods reqd), then cars will be a combination of electric and hydrogen. Problem is it’s more expensive than natural gas so it will come down to rebates/tariffs by governments. Japan, South Korea leading the way and the EU is talking about €billions of investment to go carbon free by 2030. Initial work may be a combination of green ammonia (as above) plus blue ammonia but no grey ammonia (I’m not sure the full difference but some involve hydrocarbons). So the UK being very windy (and offshore having more constant dependable wind than onshore) could put huge offshore wind farms in so we are not reliant on others for our energy future, as the conversion means we’ll have storage, so not stuffed on a still day. Otherwise you could just build new nuclear power stations and do a bit of fracking

That's exactly what I was thinking