They're planning on doing something similar in Australia for Singapore. Australia - Asia Power Link. I think that would be a good follow up video to this one.
@Killdozer667 it's still going ahead. The company that started it went into voluntary administration in Jan 2023 and was brought out by another company in Sept 2023. They're hoping to have it Supplying Darwin by 2030.
@@andrewclark3236except Andrew Twiggy Forrest through Squadron Energy was going to turn Gladstone in to a hydrogen industry hub powering the Aluminium smelter, using tax payer money to subsidise the solar array, buy the land that the power lines would need and build the hydrogen generator. Then sell the excess stored hydrogen for anyone who needed it for electricity or steel making. There is so much wrong with this I don’t know where to start. In any case the champion Dr Steven Miles got the a$$ when Qld voted in David Crisafuli. No Queensland hydrogen hub means no solar field. No solar field means Darwin gets zero, stuff all. Nothing. They have no money and all Twiggy cares about is getting tax payer money. Saving the planet would be a happy coincidence
Yeah. I saw one study claim (not sure if it was peer reviewed) that covering the entire Sahara with solar panels would raise earths temperature by about 1 degree Celsius. Not sure that figure is true, but light absorption is why losing the ice sheets are such a problem
I have an upstairs roof window I don't open in sunny weather as the South facing roof (tiles) get so hot that the rising heated air comes in the open window and that's Scotland, Africa would be a little hotter
The main problem is energy transmission. These lines, like from Morocco to Spain, cost enormous money an we need like 70 of them. Turns out, despite the fact that solar panel in Germany is about 3 times less effective, than in northern Africa, it's cheaper than all the things related to transmission of this energy from Africa.
This is key! Shipping power by transmission line is super expensive. It is surprising to many but a pipeline moves energy at a fraction of the cost of powerlines. The economics of green hydrogen or even better, green ammonia are different than green power because power is in tanks and pipelines.
Yeah this was a dumb idea. Technology has caught up. Building solar panels in North Africa? Trusting those people? Letting Muslim countries have leverage and literal power over Europe? Come on. How blind can you be. Youd need to have an army made from a coalition protecting it. Or lest it be destroyed due to radical Islam just looking to damage everything. How stupid can Germany be. First trusting Russia, and then after that backfires with LNG. They switch to Muslim countries with Solar! Just make nuclear already FFS. That way the west can cut ties with the Middle East for oil as well.
Few details were left out here, I was working back in the day with a startup in Orange county which was involved in the project, first of all the Germans at the end tried to make the north African countries invest themselves then buy the electricity from em which was weird for such projects, also Tunisia pulled out, then Libya became a non option because of the war raging there at the time, and then Algeria have strict laws on how foreign countries use their natural resources and soil but also if I remember they required the solar panels and stuff must be produced locally, then came Morocco but here again there was a problem, the suggested location was in the disputed Western Sahara territory and that means the saharaui people must consent first if any European company plans implementing there, again dead-end, thats most of the things I remember, the sad part is Europe will only try to exploit Africa in the cheapest way possible.
what you just described was an attempt to buy power from all those countries if they put in the investment to build the generation capacity. These countries could make a ton of money but they are so paranoid of eurpoean exploitation that they just rot in poverty. If I were a billionaire I'd be willing to lend them the money on basically no interest just to get them started.
Plus there's the whole "When China wants to cover Africa in trash and force them to pay for it for generations to come" truth. Some might even call it slavery.... Safe Base Load Energy density is the most important thing in order for a people to grow and excel. The more dense and consistent power is the more easily they can improve their world.
layered mixture of technologies, to suppliment the needs of the facility and the questions of immediate storage to long term use of, use right now what you can, store what you can, take advantage of the multiple sources not just the singular and have a good day
ignoring the technical challenges, the whole thing would be looted and stripped bare almost immediately due to the systemic poverty and instability of the region
@@manoz6194 - truth. Libya was stable, controlled, and the muslim brotherhood were heavily suppressed. But Gadafi wanted to trade oil with gold not the US$. And so his oil had to be "liberated". Similar (but different) to what Obama did to Syria. That was a oil pipeline that Assad said NO to.
boah the amount of bots is insane! but apart from that, the issue with turning afrika into a true "power house" is mainly storing & transfering the energy to whre its needed! would need a HUGE infrastructure project, investment & political will, to really invest into africa..... but historically, no1 wants that, for some reason
In winter equatorial generates at least double or triple the solar energy. Given UHV transmission lines power loss would be minimal, a few billion $ for a UHV line from the sahara to europe sounds like a no brainer. Maybe gibraltar, or saudi arabia doesn't sound too far either (nice pivot too)
Despite all problems, this is still a viable addition to have in a European/North-African power grid. Instead, we decided to go all in by making us depend on cheap Russian gas. Worked great 🙄
Kind of hard when they have invaded neighbors 3 times in 16 years and protected a dictator (Assad) who used chemical weapons like nerve agents on his own citizens. Doesn't sound like any friend I would want personally
Desert- tec. Not to be confused with dessert -tec.... Repeat after me desert... A large sandy place... Dessert - something you have after the main meal......
Leave our beautiful desert alone, they're already trashing it with giant solar project, cutting down 300 year old Joshua trees in the name of saving the environment 👎
If it included multiple energy types connected to a unified regional grid it would have worked but by having such a narrow view of the world and kind of trying to ram it through the success rate would have been zero especially since cheap Chinese PV's have now made solar the cheapest source of power globally with some bids as low as 1c/kwh USD in the middle east.. Overall still a good concept just needed more cooperating and yes flexible planning...
Yet another great idea which can provide a limitless source of power for people just tossed away into the nearest garbage can, thanks to the human factor.
Pros: If we covered only 1% of the worlds desert in solar panels it would provide enough electricity for us all. Cons: Electricity doesn’t like long distance travel. Long power lines create a lot of losses. A cable from Africa to the UK just is feasible.
The quote at the end pretty much summarizes all of the failures in just a few short sentences. Too big, two unfocused, too many egos involved. 🤷oh well…
There is an idea that the energy from the sun can be used to turn rust into iron and the iron can be shipped to an industrial country and be returned as rust after giving off heat during oxidation.
I thought the main and unspoken reason for moving away from fossil fuels politically strategic. They (EU and European States want to move away from critical supplies coming from abroad. The oil crisis in the 70’s was a method of the OPEC countries of gaining political sway and an attempt to get Israel to be a good neighbour. Well this just moves the external influences to other countries (not Russia or OPEC) it also brings the extra threat of terrorism so it’s politically as bad idea.
The U.S. has already invested vast resources to develop and operate a molten salt power plant, Crescent Dunes, in the desert outside Las Vegas, NV. Having the benefit of very short transmission lines to a major customer, this project still went bankrupt. With a $200M loss in value paid by taxpayers, the project subsequently was restarted, providing power mainly at night from the stored heat. It seems a challenge to overcome the current issues with this technology, along with the long-range transmission issues. Not to say this technology is not attainable, just that taxpayers should be wary. I would keep an eye on Crescent Dunes to see if this technology succeeds.
Exporting green power from regions with cheap empty land and great capacity factors may still happen but look a little different. Australia for example could make and ship enormous quantities of green ammonia (like hydrogen but more energy dense). Easily enough to fuel Asia.
Another ones of those idea where techology is nowhere near ready because physics say that there will always be inefficiencies in power generation, storage and travel. Solar and batteries are nowhere near ready and bet that the size they wanted would not be enough to
Terrible use for drinkable water. Address the poverty by giving electricity to the people who would steal it first. Then educate them to farm sustainably. Then educate them to maintain and expand their own industry. But no, the west sees people in the desert as bumpkins and disposable. Imperialism didn’t die it just got better at hiding in plain sight
Water can be piped from the nearest ocean and used for cooling before desalination. If I had Elon Musk money I'd pay a few local (less complex and therefore less corruptible) governments to design and build it with a deal that 25% of the electricity would go to the local area at cost and I could sell and distribute 75%. The water from the desalinization would go to the local community and the salt can be sold to offset costs. Basically they get jobs, free power and fresh water and I get clean electricity to sell. Alot of countries have Musk money, just saying
Watching your channel is like being immersed in a fun world of laughter and hilarity. Continue to amaze and inspire us with your quality entertainment!🤑🍓💫
“Amazing plan”, really? How about dystopian plan. So much pristine natural beauty in Australia is being replaced with these dystopian landscapes, that promise so much and provide very little. All the while, the very environment that is to be protected, is immediately destroyed.
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Privacy only for those that can afford it....
Thank you for making another one on infrastructure. Those are my favorites. I work in the energy industry and love these types of videos
They're planning on doing something similar in Australia for Singapore. Australia - Asia Power Link.
I think that would be a good follow up video to this one.
Isn't this project already dead?
@Killdozer667 it's still going ahead. The company that started it went into voluntary administration in Jan 2023 and was brought out by another company in Sept 2023. They're hoping to have it Supplying Darwin by 2030.
The same thing happen. The two CEOs, ie founding investors, couldn't agree on how the project should proceed, so one bought the other out.
@@andrewclark3236except Andrew Twiggy Forrest through Squadron Energy was going to turn Gladstone in to a hydrogen industry hub powering the Aluminium smelter, using tax payer money to subsidise the solar array, buy the land that the power lines would need and build the hydrogen generator. Then sell the excess stored hydrogen for anyone who needed it for electricity or steel making. There is so much wrong with this I don’t know where to start.
In any case the champion Dr Steven Miles got the a$$ when Qld voted in David Crisafuli. No Queensland hydrogen hub means no solar field. No solar field means Darwin gets zero, stuff all. Nothing. They have no money and all Twiggy cares about is getting tax payer money. Saving the planet would be a happy coincidence
@@jackvos8047I’ll take that bet. No it won’t. Not by 2030
Dark panels would create a hellscape of furnace like heat 🔥
Yeah. I saw one study claim (not sure if it was peer reviewed) that covering the entire Sahara with solar panels would raise earths temperature by about 1 degree Celsius. Not sure that figure is true, but light absorption is why losing the ice sheets are such a problem
I have an upstairs roof window I don't open in sunny weather as the South facing roof (tiles) get so hot that the rising heated air comes in the open window and that's Scotland, Africa would be a little hotter
The main problem is energy transmission. These lines, like from Morocco to Spain, cost enormous money an we need like 70 of them. Turns out, despite the fact that solar panel in Germany is about 3 times less effective, than in northern Africa, it's cheaper than all the things related to transmission of this energy from Africa.
This is key! Shipping power by transmission line is super expensive.
It is surprising to many but a pipeline moves energy at a fraction of the cost of powerlines.
The economics of green hydrogen or even better, green ammonia are different than green power because power is in tanks and pipelines.
Yeah this was a dumb idea. Technology has caught up.
Building solar panels in North Africa? Trusting those people? Letting Muslim countries have leverage and literal power over Europe? Come on. How blind can you be.
Youd need to have an army made from a coalition protecting it. Or lest it be destroyed due to radical Islam just looking to damage everything.
How stupid can Germany be. First trusting Russia, and then after that backfires with LNG. They switch to Muslim countries with Solar!
Just make nuclear already FFS. That way the west can cut ties with the Middle East for oil as well.
Few details were left out here, I was working back in the day with a startup in Orange county which was involved in the project, first of all the Germans at the end tried to make the north African countries invest themselves then buy the electricity from em which was weird for such projects, also Tunisia pulled out, then Libya became a non option because of the war raging there at the time, and then Algeria have strict laws on how foreign countries use their natural resources and soil but also if I remember they required the solar panels and stuff must be produced locally, then came Morocco but here again there was a problem, the suggested location was in the disputed Western Sahara territory and that means the saharaui people must consent first if any European company plans implementing there, again dead-end, thats most of the things I remember, the sad part is Europe will only try to exploit Africa in the cheapest way possible.
what you just described was an attempt to buy power from all those countries if they put in the investment to build the generation capacity. These countries could make a ton of money but they are so paranoid of eurpoean exploitation that they just rot in poverty. If I were a billionaire I'd be willing to lend them the money on basically no interest just to get them started.
Plus there's the whole "When China wants to cover Africa in trash and force them to pay for it for generations to come" truth. Some might even call it slavery....
Safe Base Load Energy density is the most important thing in order for a people to grow and excel. The more dense and consistent power is the more easily they can improve their world.
Yes! Another Simon video, I already know why this didn’t happen, but I’m going to watch anyway
Make it so, darnit!
layered mixture of technologies, to suppliment the needs of the facility and the questions of immediate storage to long term use of, use right now what you can, store what you can, take advantage of the multiple sources not just the singular and have a good day
ignoring the technical challenges, the whole thing would be looted and stripped bare almost immediately due to the systemic poverty and instability of the region
Thank Obama for making it a lot worse.
But Europeans can't stop their inbred desire to r word the African continent.
And criminals
Due to poverty? The funds would be stolen by the governments long before the average person got a chance 😂.. poverty doesnt create crime.
@@manoz6194 - truth. Libya was stable, controlled, and the muslim brotherhood were heavily suppressed. But Gadafi wanted to trade oil with gold not the US$. And so his oil had to be "liberated".
Similar (but different) to what Obama did to Syria. That was a oil pipeline that Assad said NO to.
boah the amount of bots is insane!
but apart from that, the issue with turning afrika into a true "power house" is mainly storing & transfering the energy to whre its needed!
would need a HUGE infrastructure project, investment & political will, to really invest into africa..... but historically, no1 wants that, for some reason
Well, very low local population to build and maintain, serious instability, and power loss over distance all really make a difference.
In winter equatorial generates at least double or triple the solar energy. Given UHV transmission lines power loss would be minimal, a few billion $ for a UHV line from the sahara to europe sounds like a no brainer.
Maybe gibraltar, or saudi arabia doesn't sound too far either (nice pivot too)
Despite all problems, this is still a viable addition to have in a European/North-African power grid.
Instead, we decided to go all in by making us depend on cheap Russian gas. Worked great 🙄
Maybe you should learn to get along with Russia.....
Kind of hard when they have invaded neighbors 3 times in 16 years and protected a dictator (Assad) who used chemical weapons like nerve agents on his own citizens. Doesn't sound like any friend I would want personally
Desert- tec. Not to be confused with dessert -tec.... Repeat after me desert... A large sandy place...
Dessert - something you have after the main meal......
The PV electric energy production has a minor issue - it is not feasible, until some cheaper methods are there.
One might consider this to be a potential project for California and the rest of the SW of the US.
Leave our beautiful desert alone, they're already trashing it with giant solar project, cutting down 300 year old Joshua trees in the name of saving the environment 👎
Yes! California loves stuff like this that doesn't work out
One thing I am very curious about is how would they protect all those solar reflectors from sandstorms.
One very big question where are they going to get the water to clean them?
Brian McManus from Real Engineering would be proud of this video!
Can this kind of plant use sea water to make steam and gather clean water that come out?
If it included multiple energy types connected to a unified regional grid it would have worked but by having such a narrow view of the world and kind of trying to ram it through the success rate would have been zero especially since cheap Chinese PV's have now made solar the cheapest source of power globally with some bids as low as 1c/kwh USD in the middle east.. Overall still a good concept just needed more cooperating and yes flexible planning...
another project that will never come to pass
One that was never going to work because these people had forgotten how inefficient solar is and how not ready batteries are for this level of power
@@qazhr I mean, give it another hundred years and we might have the technology to do the idea justice
Feeling better, Simon?
So they were literally so preoccupied about whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should...
Yet another great idea which can provide a limitless source of power for people just tossed away into the nearest garbage can, thanks to the human factor.
People with power have oil.
Pros: If we covered only 1% of the worlds desert in solar panels it would provide enough electricity for us all.
Cons: Electricity doesn’t like long distance travel. Long power lines create a lot of losses. A cable from Africa to the UK just is feasible.
Id rather have 5pv modules on my own roof than relaing on an african state that is as stable as a brick balanced on an single vertical spaghetto.
100% this. I don’t trust that continent to maintain a solar grid at all. Now add to that the corruption and it wouldn’t last a decade at best.
I compliment your use of the singular form of "spaghetti".
Well there's less stuff to pass through then oil and gas from the Persian Gulf to Red Sea and everything but you're not wrong.
The quote at the end pretty much summarizes all of the failures in just a few short sentences. Too big, two unfocused, too many egos involved. 🤷oh well…
The Panels best be Sand Proofed....
The desert triple technology site required water to clean the mirrors and a fossil fuel power station to keep the molten salt molten at night.....
Transfering that electricity across the sea would be quite a feat. Add to that Chinese ships dragging their anchors and you have a boondoggle.
There is an idea that the energy from the sun can be used to turn rust into iron and the iron can be shipped to an industrial country and be returned as rust after giving off heat during oxidation.
With so much cheap solar they should invest in high-energy industries like aluminium melting or digital mining.
Only watched for 2 mins but funny how you prounced it as "deserted" as opposed to desert-tec
I thought the main and unspoken reason for moving away from fossil fuels politically strategic. They (EU and European States want to move away from critical supplies coming from abroad. The oil crisis in the 70’s was a method of the OPEC countries of gaining political sway and an attempt to get Israel to be a good neighbour. Well this just moves the external influences to other countries (not Russia or OPEC) it also brings the extra threat of terrorism so it’s politically as bad idea.
The U.S. has already invested vast resources to develop and operate a molten salt power plant, Crescent Dunes, in the desert outside Las Vegas, NV. Having the benefit of very short transmission lines to a major customer, this project still went bankrupt. With a $200M loss in value paid by taxpayers, the project subsequently was restarted, providing power mainly at night from the stored heat. It seems a challenge to overcome the current issues with this technology, along with the long-range transmission issues. Not to say this technology is not attainable, just that taxpayers should be wary. I would keep an eye on Crescent Dunes to see if this technology succeeds.
There is also the issue of even when it was fully operational it had a miserable 57% capacity factor.
It still amuses me that after all we learned. Steam power raines supreme.
*reigns
New vagas vibes
Make Africa green again.
Exporting green power from regions with cheap empty land and great capacity factors may still happen but look a little different.
Australia for example could make and ship enormous quantities of green ammonia (like hydrogen but more energy dense). Easily enough to fuel Asia.
Another ones of those idea where techology is nowhere near ready because physics say that there will always be inefficiencies in power generation, storage and travel. Solar and batteries are nowhere near ready and bet that the size they wanted would not be enough to
Because you'd have thousands of acres buried over night when the first sand storm hits.
Who is gonna wash all the solar panels? Sand storms and such.
I'm sure that the locals would be more than willing to pitch in.
Terrible use for drinkable water. Address the poverty by giving electricity to the people who would steal it first. Then educate them to farm sustainably. Then educate them to maintain and expand their own industry. But no, the west sees people in the desert as bumpkins and disposable. Imperialism didn’t die it just got better at hiding in plain sight
This already exists. I saw it in the movie Sahara. 😂
Why does "free" energy come with a big price tag and large carbon footprint?
You can breathe easier with Desertec
700 terrawatt *hours* per year by 2050. Not 700 terrawatts.
Water can be piped from the nearest ocean and used for cooling before desalination. If I had Elon Musk money I'd pay a few local (less complex and therefore less corruptible) governments to design and build it with a deal that 25% of the electricity would go to the local area at cost and I could sell and distribute 75%. The water from the desalinization would go to the local community and the salt can be sold to offset costs. Basically they get jobs, free power and fresh water and I get clean electricity to sell. Alot of countries have Musk money, just saying
3000 hectares for less than 600 megawatts. Pretty damn inefficient.
I think in Africa there are few countries only who
Units! 19:07 and 19:26. Power is kW, energy is kWh, intensity is kW/m2. The is no such thing as kW/h/m2 or GW/h
All the money wasted on the desertech ended up just being a scene from the movie SAHARAH.
Tldw: sand
That is too large of a project to ever remain productive. It's too easy to exploit and too difficult to properly maintain.
I think the regular sandstorms experienced in N. Africa would have maintenance a nightmare.
tornadoes
So what happens when they get completely buried in a sand storm? 😂
Built-in wiper blades
Or something like what clears it like an etch a sketch. Just an idea
They use sharks to clear it
@@seanfraustus they could use those whale bones they found in the middle of the Sahara
Well they're angled so most sand would slide off.
I've worked in the solar industry for the last decade, but I'm not a silo'd kool-aid drinker. It was obvious this project was never going to happen.
Spain is almost endless desert, why not to there. Sure that technology is bad, it failed massive. It need way better technology
Thermal solar is a loser, stick with PV, keep it simple no maintenance .
sounds like a horrible idea
Really. I almost thought the Saudis were behind it.
@@Hillbilly001 makes it even worse
@01NATHAN10 LOL! They do have a propensity to try really goofy things though.
Maybe the Saudis would fund a Dyson Sphere. They do like throwing money around.
@@Hillbilly001 easy to do with you have an abundance of money and slave labor
He talks as his country is not colonial force anymore
Watching your channel is like being immersed in a fun world of laughter and hilarity. Continue to amaze and inspire us with your quality entertainment!🤑🍓💫
Each of your videos is a unique story that touches the hearts and minds of your viewers. Keep inspiring and touching us!😱🗻🥧
Simon isn't touching anyone! That's all alleged.
“Amazing plan”, really? How about dystopian plan. So much pristine natural beauty in Australia is being replaced with these dystopian landscapes, that promise so much and provide very little. All the while, the very environment that is to be protected, is immediately destroyed.
Ok but I wonder if Africa it’s self want this and is building it not other countries tryna take them resources
What a bad idea.
Better to try for a Dyson Sphere. Maybe the Saudis would fund that one.
It is not a technically practical or efficient way to produce and distribute electrical energy... That's why it hasn't been done.
Your videos are always so insightful and inspiring! Thank you for your talent and dedication.🪱🐰⚾️
Your videos always bring so much positivity and good mood. Thank you for your humorous talent and bright energy!🥝🏈💍
Thank you for such great content! You really put your heart into every video. I can see that you are trying for your audience.🥬🟫🦖