> Past proposals have suggested that North African energy projects could meet as much as 15 percent of Europe’s electricity demand.<p>It's a significant chunk, but obviously needs to be supplemented with more solar/hydro/wind/nuclear in Europe to cause a significant reduction in CO2/kWh. <a href="https://twitter.com/european_grid" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/european_grid</a> is always an interesting read, seeing how much the generation method varies between neighbouring countries.
In the same paragraph the author acknowledges the dangers or relying on a foreign entity for energy supply, and ends up proposing the exact same thing.<p>I'm all in for renewable when it makes sense, but I think it's time we stop pretending all renewables work everywhere. Solar is not going to work in Northen Europe, and transporting energy from the south is also not the solution.<p>Nuclear is an essential piece of the climate puzzle, especially for northen climates, and these kinds of proposals feel like the German anti-nuclear agenda bending their backs to try and find _some way_ to make it work.
Michael Liebreich has vouched for this idea, which slightly raises my opinion of it, but it still seems odd to me.<p><a href="https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1645710705784664066" rel="nofollow">https://twitter.com/MLiebreich/status/1645710705784664066</a><p>It seems to be stuck in the past, talking about "baseload" and solar in deserts.<p>Being part of an Europe wide supergrid that connects distributed storage and generation seems to be a much more modern take from the UK side.<p>Meanwhile Morocco probably wants to be looking at ways it can turn its renewables into something it can sell to more than one country, probably via some kind of value-add industry.<p>edit: one specific oddity, in order to make full use of the cable, they need to combine the solar with wind and batteries. But wind and batteries can be installed in the UK/North Sea, and wind is stronger in the winter.
Wind on sea can generate 30GW/km2. Europe has tons of shallow seas (<50m) where it could be built - North Sea is fairly shallow and windy, Adriatic, Baltic, Celtic, Black sea, Channel, Gulf of Lion. Build peak power of 5x times the needed electricity, wind always blows somewhere. ENTSO-E needed ~500GW peak power in 2021, so 100km2 of sea wind turbines would cover it comfortably
I wonder what are the local climate effects of fully covering the desert by solar panels (that's not exactly what will happen here but still). Presumably the temperature will be reduced, but I wonder if it's possible to use this to make that to make the area less deserty.
What's wrong with nuclear power? Seems to work well enough for the US, for India, for China, for France, and a bunch of other places.<p>I'm puzzled why we'd have to enter into a relationship with Morocco when nuclear power is proven clean tech, at least a hundred years old.<p>Am I missing something?
Arguments against:<p>- Sand/Dirt<p>- Excess Heat<p>- Transmission losses<p>- Political instability<p>- Geopolitics (Algeria, other issues..)<p>Arguments for:<p>- Gets around NIMBY<p>- ???<p>Panels need to be clean and cool (25c) to work optimally. Preferably close to where the energy is consumed.<p>Incidentally the interiors of many sunny EU countries like Spain are depopulated..
> one side of the Mediterranean is far drearier and cloudier than the other<p>Is it talking about the famously dreary countries of Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, etc?