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Sahara Forest Project / Screenergy
A conceptual drawing of the Sahara Forest Project is shown here. The system uses sunlight and seawater to produce food, fuel, and drinking water. A pilot plant will be constructed near the Red Sea in Jordan.
A green machine that promises to turn sun and seawater into food, fuel and drinking water will be tried out in the desert near the Red Sea in Jordan, project partners announced.
The Sahara Forest Project has the potential to turn deserts into green oases that soak up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and thus curb global climate change. It’s the sort of thing environmentalists who aren't afraid of geoengineering might describe as dreamy.
How it works
The machine integrates a 10-megawatt solar power plant with a high-tech greenhouse and desalination system to turn readily available sun and seawater into life essentials that are increasingly difficult to acquire affordably in the Middle East.
Here's how it works: Saltwater pumped from the Red Sea is evaporated from grilles at the front of the greenhouse to create cool and humid conditions, which are good for growing food and algae. The algae can be used to produce more food or fuel.
As the cool and humid air leaves the growing area, it passes over a second evaporator containing seawater heated by the sun, which warms the air so it can hold even more water. This hot and humid air then meets a series of vertical pipes that have been cooled by seawater, which causes the freshwater vapors to condense and trickle as freshwater droplets down the tubes for collection.
This freshwater is then heated by a concentrated solar power plant, which creates steam to turn turbines that generate electricity. The electricity powers the pumps and fans used to bring saltwater in from the Red Sea and grow crops and algae in the greenhouse. Leftover freshwater will be used to re-green the area around the greenhouse, creating that carbon-soaking vegetative sponge.
Funding and rollout
Project partners signed a deal to build a demonstration machine on a 50-acre site in Aqaba with funding from the Norwegian government. The designers estimate the construction cost to be $110 million (80 million euros). In addition, the project has rights for expansion onto 500 acres.
In-depth feasibility studies will be conducted throughout 2011. Construction of the pilot plant is slated for 2012, with commercial-scale development eyed for 2015.
Partners in the Sahara Forest Project include London-based Max Fordham Consulting Engineers, Seawater Greenhouse, Exploration Architecture and the Oslo, Norway-based Bellona Foundation.
“The Sahara Forest Project is a fiercely ambitious effort from Bellona, but ambitious is exactly what we must be,” Bellona Foundation President Frederic Hauge said in a statement. “A critical prerequisite for solving both the climate crisis and the world’s food problem is to enable developing countries to produce their own food, their own water, and their own clean energy, instead of importing oil from us.”
More on green energy:
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John Roach is a contributing writer for msnbc.com. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by hitting the "like" button on the Cosmic Log Facebook page or following msnbc.com's science editor, Alan Boyle, on Twitter (@b0yle).
Leave a Comment:
Great, I hope it works.
I'm surprised there aren't more of these yet. Hopefully there will be!!!
A solar thermal system is closed loop, you use the seawater to cool the condenser and make distilled water. Two loops that keep the water separate and generate electricity. This has been known for more than 50 years.
Hmmm I wonder why they don't extract the salt for sale while they desalinate the water. The waste water from desalinization would already be high in salts and would not really take much more effort to evaporate the rest of the water and package the salt for sale.
Perhaps the highly-saline waste water could be routed to the Dead Sea to help get its level back to where it should be. Just a thought.
Can you imagine what we could do if we invested money into stuff like this instead of building the better bomb?
Ooops - that would be way to rational - sorry! LOL
We rely mostly on the private sector which seeks to maximize profits. The cost of solar thermal electric is still a bit higher than a coal fired power plant.
How come desert States here in the U.S.A. don't do this?
Uh, maybe because they don't have a Sea coast?
n bcuz they have enough fuel for the next 50 years, and have the largest renewable thermal power plant in the world ( stirling engines powered by super lenses ! )
This is the kind of thing that we need more of. However, I see somebody making a lot of money off this.
I sure hope so! That would ensure that it gets replicated many times over.
I want one!
Hmmm. So where does the salt and excess heat go? It's not a truly closed loop. I've some doubts about this being efficient use of the solar panels, etc. More details, please!
I'm more concerned with how this will affect the desert ecosystem. If these "green machines" got big enough and there were enough of them, they could potentially alter weather patterns which would most likely cause many of the native organisms to go extinct. Not to mention natural disasters such as flooding, or the introduction of diseases that couldn't survive and thrive there before because it was too hot and dry, but now can thanks to this 'forest in the desert.'
This idea definitely has some potential, and I can see how this project has the potential to change the world. I just think that before we try to mess with the environment and possibly screw it up even more, we do a significant amount of research and analyze the potential side effects this may have.
Just how long do you think oil will last? No oil, no energy, plastics, insecticides, food or transportation. Look it up. OPEC has been juggling the books since the late 80's
That still doesn't justify not doing research. Oil definitely won't last much longer. If oil hasn't peaked yet, then it will soon.
HS, oilis not expensive enough yet! It's about time some of the folks in the middle east spend some of their (Petro) money on a means in which to survive once the (Petro) money stops flowing. Very soon oil will be history on the world market. Hydrogen will be the next big investment! It will happen during the 21st century.
I read about a generator that was somewhat similar to this that a scientist in Hawaii was experimenting with. Essentially it relied on pumping cool water from the ocean floor and having it interact with warmer water gathered near the surface. Here's a wikipedia article about the concept (OTEC: Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion). Cool stuff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_thermal_energy_conversion
I like the idea, and I hope it is successful. As to those that worry about climate change from 500 acre plots, the sheer mass of the desert prevents that. As they described it, the project will make oasis; small islands of green in the desert. Every desert scientists have studied was green at one time in the far past. Although I believe that mankind can make more deserts, so far I do not see much proof that we can bring back green to deserts without a great expendature of money and energy. Many cultures are trying to reseed semi-desert. Israel for one, and i believe one of the Apache nations has also seeded forests. With the arid climates, fire works to destroy what it takes them years to achieve. Still.....never stop planting!! Every tree planted is a positive move. I don't think I will ever read in my lifetime of an environmental disaster caused by planting too many trees in an ecosystem.
Kramer Junction in the Mojave Desert produces 300 megawatts and has been running for 30 years. They could put 100 such plants in that desert and it would have very little negative impact on the desert ecology.
awesome. i had that idea quite a few years ago. nice to see it go into action
If U.S. of A. can have that kind of project, it is great. And, if the technology can prepare indoor fish ponds to raising fish, indoor farm land, outdoor reservior can also raise fish, .. it is good. And, last year, Russia scientists have invented the ark...
These kinds of projects allow us to anticipate environmental issues better.
That is also about economy towards 21st century.
As can be readily seen from looking at the artist's rendition, The greenery is darker than the surrounding desert. This would increase the heat absorbed from the Sun, as the desert reflects much more back into space. This will add to the other man made causes of Global Warming. Any water vapor released by the irrigated 'forest' would add to the greenhouse gasses in our atmosphere.
Concentrated salt water produced by this project can NOT be released into the Red Sea which already has an elevated salinity. If it were, the ecology of the Northern end of the Red Sea would be devastated. I guess it could be put in tankers and released far out to sea in the Indian Ocean, but piping it to the Dead Sea would probably be cheaper.
Absorbtion of solar energy is what we want. The plants don't hold in the heat/energy, they use photosynthesis to transform it. Reflected heat is what causes the greenhouse effect as the energy doesn't go out into space, but gets reflected again by the greenhouse gases back towards the earth.
I've never heard anyone say that water vapor was a part of greenhouse gases. Source? I think middle school science classes teach that water vapor condenses into rain.
And lastly, since this is being highly promoted as an ecological project, I would lay odds that they have a more practical way of dealing with their "waste" (salt water) than the numerous companies and manufacturing plants that got away for decades with disposing of chemical pollutants into local lakes and rivers.
RandomB - 1. Absorption, (activate your spell-checker), of solar energy is NOT what we want. We want the Solar energy reflected/radiated back out into space. Energy absorbed ALWAYS ends up as heat. Carbon 'fixed' is chemical energy that, eventually, is released, food grown becomes body heat, biofuels get burned. If you don't believe me, come talk to my son's Middle School science teacher.
2. A quick Google will get you a Wikipedia entry that stated that water vapor is both the most common greenhouse gas and the most important. IF you had learned the entire lesson in Middle School science class, you would have remembered that water vapor releases large amounts of heat when it condenses into water. If you don't believe me, again, you may consult my son's Middle School science teacher.
3. I agree, they should, (it has been said that pollution was actually wasted resources, coal tar used to be thrown away, etc.), but the market for the salt produced may be affected by the cost of transporting it. The Jordanians could simply create the worlds largest salt mountain. (I wonder if one could ski on it?) :-D
I hope this works. It just goes to show that the US is behind the curve on alternative energy and many green technologies. We will continue to to diminish as a world power as we have passed the baton of advancement to others. So sad for our future.
My father, who was a chemical engineer, worked on methods of using solar energy to distill water over 30 years ago. His design used water filled plastic lenses. America is NOT behind the curve on research. When the economics indicate, America will use 'alternative' energy.