The desert is often viewed as the final frontier that has not been exploited, hot, very dry and uncultivated in the world. However, is it possible that the desert can become a place that is capable of becoming a source of clean energy, capable of serving the needs of humans on the rise?
Many scientists are of the view that the desert can serve all human needs, if fact more than what they need, according to BBC World Service.
What is needed to be undertaken is to absorb sunlight and convert it to electricity. A consultant of energy, Dr Leendert Verhoef, states that this can be done.
“If you reflect upon the wide area that covers a desert, it is indeed very large. If you look at the Gobi Desert in China alone, if the area was covered with a solar system, it will serve the energy needs of the world,” he said. But how are we going to do it?
The first step is to arrange static plates over the face of the desert facing towards the sun.
The second step is to have many giant solar dishes measuring around 20 to 40 metres, following the path of the sun.
These dishes will collect energy of the sun and convert it to electricity. What is important is that the production of these dishes is far more cheaper than solar panels which we often witness now. The rewards do not stop here. Wherever there is energy, there will be life, and if it is the vision to industrialise this energy then it will become a centre of life in the middle of the desert.
Dr Verhoef added, if a place has excess to such a source of energy, many programs can be established. For example, you can begin to pump out water and begin the planting of vegetation, or you can develop a city!
Just look at America which supports huge cities such as Phoenix and Las Vegas. “They are situated in the desert, not because the place is good, but because there exist an energy source which can support life, added Dr Verhoef.
However, is this only a dream because solar technology was created more than 50 years ago but its potential has not been fully utilised.
Concerning this, the Director of World Energy at Accenture Managing Consultants in London, Mark Spelman, states that it mainly is related to cost and the scale of achievement.
“What is exceptionally important is whether we can produce energy on a large scale through solar panels. The same question is also directed towards the production of energy from the ocean. What we need now is to maximise investments to develop technology that is cheap to produce solar energy,” he said.
The scale of investment according to Spelman is expected to be a long way off, and there are still many problems in relation to acquiring solar energy in the desert. |
ABOUT US
