Incredible Sahara Forest Project to Generate Fresh Water, Solar Power and Crops – A Collaboration between CSP & Seawater Greenhouses

Can you imagine being able to produce enough water in the Sahara to grow crops there? Can you imagine harnessing sufficient quantities of solar power to supply electricity to cities in Africa and cities in Europe? Can you imagine producing a sustainable bio-fuel that doesn’t impact on world food supplies? Charlie Paton,Michael Pawlyn and Bill Watts can and what’s more they can imagine all these happening in the same place at the same time.

This week this trio of visionaries launched the Sahara Forest Project: their proposal to combine two innovative technologies, Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) and Seawater Greenhouses, to produce renewable energy, water and food in an area of desert known to be one of the hottest places on earth.

Multitasking renewable solutions
It has often been said that there will be no one solution to solving the climate crisis and all those issues that surround it, such as energy sources, food prices and water supply. We need a portfolio of technologies to help us to combat these advancing problems. The Sahara Forest Project is one of the first projects we’ve seen that proposes not only to combine technologies to optimise performance and production, but also aims to tackle all of the serious challenges mentioned above. It is a bold and ambitious plan that, if realised, could have a powerful positive impact not only for the Sahara region, but also for Europe and the rest of the world.

Positive Collaboration
The most exciting aspect of the Sahara Forest Project is not specifically the use of these technologies. We’ve read about Seawater Greenhouses and Concentrated Solar Power and how they’re being used to great effect. It is the fact that they are being used together in the same place, to support each other and optimize their operating capacities to produce energy and water and by proxy vegetation.

This sense of collaboration is echoed in the team of people behind the proposal: an inventor – Charlie Paton, creator of the Seawater Greenhouse; an architect – Michael Pawlyn of Exploration Architecture, previously of Grimshaw and the lead architect on the iconic Eden Project; an engineer – Bill Watts of Max Fordham & Partners, an engineering firm that focuses on energy efficient systems for the built environment. These three men have brought their considerable expertise together to create a truly innovative proposal.

Illustration of greenhouses having a similar effect on the climate as a region of forest, yet providing a net input of water vapour from the sea.

What does a Seawater Greenhouse do?
The Seawater Greenhouse was designed to address the problem of irrigating crops in arid coastal regions by evaporating seawater and condensing it into fresh water. This helps to reverse the trend of desertification created by normal industrial greenhouses, which can use up to five times more water to irrigate crops than the respective region’s average annual rainfall. The system works by mimicking the natural hydrological cycle where seawater heated by the sun, evaporates, cools down to form clouds and returns to the earth as rain, fog or dew.

What does Concentrated Solar Power do?
CSP is currently seen as one of the most exciting and powerful ways of harnessing the sun’s energy to create power. Like the Seawater Greenhouse, CSP works well in hot arid areas where the sun is at its most powerful. The sun’s rays, collected through reflecting mirrors, are used to heat water which then produces steam to power turbines. Examples currently working are Nevada Solar 1 near Las Vegas, and the solar tower in Barstow California. It has been proposed that the energy created by CSP in the Sahara could be transported to Europe with minimal loss via high voltage DC power lines.

Sketch showing long ‘hedge’ of Seawater Greenhouses oriented towards the wind.Photo of Solar Power Tower in Barstow, California

How will the Sahara Forest Project work?
These CSP / Seawater Greenhouse technologies will work together at a location some distance from the north coast of Africa, hopefully at a point below sea level which will reduce or potentially eliminate the costs of pumping seawater. The scheme has been designed as a ‘hedge’ of greenhouses providing a windbreak and shelter for the outdoor planting. CSP arrays will be placed at intervals along the greenhouse ‘hedge’. The greenhouses produce five time more fresh water than needed for the plants inside. This surplus will be used to irrigate the planted orchards and the Jatrophra crop, which can be turned into bio-fuel for transportation and other needs.

Commercial Synergies
The Sahara Forest Project team tell us that the innovative interaction between the two technologies helps each to function more efficiently:

1.CSP systems need water for cleaning the mirrors and for the generation of steam to drive the turbines which the greenhouses can provide.

2.The Greenhouse evaporators make very efficient dust traps (as do plants that are growing outside) which benefits the CSP since the mirrors stay cleaner and therefore operate more 
efficiently.

3. In solar thermal power plants, only about 25% of the collected solar energy is converted into electricity. If combined with sea water another 50% of the collected energy, normally released as heat, can be used for desalination. This way, up to 85% of the collected solar energy can be used.

In conclusion the Sahara Forest Project works on many levels. By combining the benefits of Concentrated Solar Power and Seawater Greenhouses the design team has vastly scaled up the positive outputs of renewable energy, food production and fresh water supply. Furthermore they tell us that “the scheme would also have the restorative effect of returning areas of desert to forested land and sequestering substantial quantities of atmospheric carbon in new plant growth and reactivated soils.” Surely this is a perfect example of the potential power of human and technological collaboration.

:: Seawater Greenhouse
:: Exploration Architecture
:: Max Fordham & Partners

More on Concentrated Solar Power:
Solar Energy in the Sahara to Power Europe Gains Support 
Solar Thermal Power in North-Africa: How Much Land to Power the World?
Switched On: 15,000 Homes Powered By Nevada Solar One 
1000 Suns From Huge Concentrating Dish
Abengoa Solar to Build World’s Largest Solar Plant in Arizona

Source:

“Incredible Sahara Forest Project to Generate Fresh Water, Solar Power and Crops in African Desert”, treehugger.com, Design & Architecture, Leonora Oppenheim, 2nd Sept 2008

IKEA Puts $U.S. 75 Million Toward Cheap Solar

Johan Stenebo is chief of an IKEA susidiary called Greentech, and a man with a dream. Stenebo wants to invest in the “cheapest, best” PV roof panels available in order to sell them in IKEA stores in the next two to four years.

Low-cost solar a tall order
Of course, that’s a very tall order. But IKEA founder Ingvar Kamprad‘s son Peter is an avowed green tech believer, and Stenebo’s Greentech will put about US$75 million into at many as ten companies in five different areas: solar technology, energy conservation, water saving products, alternative lighting, and new product materials. Scandinavian companies are Greentech’s first focus. Nearly all of these areas are ones we would welcome the IKEA low-cost approach to, although setting up solar roof panels with just the simplistic diagrams and little Allen keys that accompany IKEA’s usual do-it-yourself furniture seems something of a stretch. Then there’s the problem than many installations require building and other permits. But IKEA’s fabulous distribution network of 270 global superstores would mean green tech for the global masses, a welcome development.

Solar supermarkets in four years?
Up until now, IKEA has held itself to interior decoration rather than pursuing the constructing and building sector that is dominated (at least in the U.S.) by players such as Lowe’s and Home Depot. But these megastores haven’t tried to sell green solutions in any organized fashion, so IKEA sees little current competition for its plans to get products to stores in three to four years. Via ::Miljö Aktuellt (Swedish)

Read more on IKEA:
IKEA Bans Plastic Bags For Good
IKEA Gives Out 60,000 Free CFLs
IKEA Lighting The Way To Warmer LED Lamps

Source:

“IKEA Puts $U.S. 75 Million Toward Cheap Solar”, treehugger.com, Business & Politics, April Streeter, 14th Aug 2008

High School Harvests 280,000 Gallons of Rainwater Each Year

by Michael Graham Richard, Gatineau, Canada on 18th July 2008 for treehugger.com

Green High School
The Langston Brown Community Center and High School in Arlington, Virginia, has a LEED Silver rating and has quite a few interesting green features. The enormous water tanks used to store rainwater certainly are the most visible (though the one on the front of the building is hidden by panels that make it blend in the overall design).

The two 11,000-gallon tanks store about 280,000 gallons of rainwater per year, and that water is used for “onsite irrigation, sidewalk washing, and other uses.” We wish they would consider using it for toilets too, though they already have waterless urinals that contribute to the project’s 23% reduction in potable water use.

Other Green Features

The indoor environment features adhesives, solvents, paints, and carpets with low levels of volatile organic compounds (VOCs). Each classroom provides at least four switches to control lighting levels. Sunshades provide indirect daylighting while maintaining views in more than 90% of the building’s occupied spaces. Additional daylighting in every third-floor classroom comes from clerestory windows. A stained concrete floor system was used in lieu of vinyl composition tile.

Green Education
Ontario School Gives Students a Lesson in Clean Energy
University of Pennsylvania Becomes #1 Among U.S. Universities for Wind-Power Usage

More on Langston Brown High School
US Green Building Council
High School Captures 280,000 Gallons Of Water Per Year

Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) webcast with John Barry, VP Unconventionals, Enhanced Oil Recovery and CO2

Just yesterday, I received an invitation to an online discussion with Shell on CCS, Enhanced Oil Recovery etc.

As a blog with a well-informed interest in the energy challenge and new technologies to reduce the impact of CO2 emissions on the environment, I hope you (and your readers) will be interested in this invitation to join Shell for an online discussion on Carbon Capture and Storage.

John Barry, Shell’s VP Unconventionals, Enhanced Oil Recovery & CO2 will be answering your questions about this technology in a live webchat on June 19 at 5pm CET (11am in NYC) athttp://www.shell.com/dialogues. If you visit the site in advance of this date you can watch a short video where he gives some useful background information on this exciting technology and Shell’s strategy.

Please take the opportunity to register now so that you can post your questions to him on June 19 and to receive reminders about this and future webcast and Q&As. Registration will take only 30 seconds.

Please do feel free to pass this message on to others who you think may like to attend this webchat, and do feel free to blog it either before or afterwards.

(I hope you don’t mind me posting this invitation as a comment – I couldn’t see an email address to contact you privately.)

Best wishes

Chris Reed
Shell Scenarios team

Click here to pre-register:

http://www.shelldialogues.com/carbon-capture-and-storage

Pre-register to have your say, opinions, ideas heard!

Personally, I’m pretty much skeptical about carbon sequestration, not as a solution to the current global warming crisis but as a high-fidelity long-term solution. Would efficient CCS leave us complacent and permit ourselves to more carbon dioxide emission? Would this “out of sight, out of minds” scenario be possible? What are the statistics for long-term viability for CCS?

However, I’m not undermining the help that CCS could bring, especially in this last hour where I foresee that climate change mitigation at the current pace is not nearly enough to prevent severe global warming. So with this perspective, CCS is arguably a great time buyer for other green policies and technologies to bring down the carbon dioxide concentrations in the air.

What are YOUR thoughts?

 

Jordan to Build Sustainable City for One Million

by Jesse Fox, Tel Aviv, Israel on 240508 for treehugger.com

Masdar City, the United Arab Emirates’ ambitious project to build the first zero-emissions city in the Middle East, is already spawning similar initiatives in the region. According to Abu Dhabi newspaper The National, Jordan is interested in building its own version of Masdar – ten times the size of the original.

Serge Younes, of the UK-based company WSP Group, which is involved in working out sustainability issues in Masdar, says Jordan’s new ecocity would be built on the outskirts of Amman and eventually house a million people. (Note: Jordan’s entire population numbers only around 7 million.)

Unlike its counterpart in Abu Dhabi, the new city, which has yet to receive a name, will not be zero carbon. It will, however, utilize many of the same elements: waste and water will be recycled and reused, housing will be built and orientated to take advantage of prevailing winds and maximize energy efficiency, efficient district-wide systems will handle heating and cooling, and electricity will come from planned wind and solar thermal plants, or be generated on site.

According to The National, building a sustainable city in Jordan will likely be an easier task than building Masdar, since the climate in Jordan is more hospitable and the people are already used to conserving water and other resources.

The project has the support of the King and the government, who are looking for investors, and construction is expected to begin early next year. The official announcement of the plan will take place in June.

Apropos Masdar City – the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company, the developer of the project, has announced that it will begin posting a record of the carbon emitted during the city’s construction on a website, as well as a video recording of the progress of construction in real time.

 

For more on Masdar City (Links by Treehugger):
Model Ecopolis Called Masdar
Can Foster + Partners’ Masdar City in U.A.E be Truly Sustainable?
Masdar City to Build “Positive-Energy” Building

Sources:

Carbon-Neutral CIty Planned for Jordan, Chris Stanton for The National, May 15. 2008 8:09PM UAE (link)