Europe Looks to Africa for Solar Power

The European project known as Desertec is nothing if not ambitious. It aims to harvest the sun’s energy — using a method known as concentrating solar power, or C.S.P. — from the vast North African desert and deliver it as electricity, via high-voltage transmission lines, to markets in Europe. Eventually, its backers say, it could satisfy as much as 15 percent of the European Union’s power needs.

The idea, which has been bouncing around for years, arises out of an alphabet soup of organizations, formal multinational partnerships and regional acronyms like TREC, for Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation; Eumena, or European Union, the Mediterranean and North Africa; the Union of the Mediterranean; and the Club of Rome.

As James Kanter reported in our Green Inc. blog, the project took a step forward last week when a consortium of German businesses announced plans to pursue financing and otherwise hammer out details for Desertec, which is expected to cost about €400 billion, or $555 billion.

Desertec would be the largest centralized solar power production project on earth. That such an ambitious, clean-energy megaproject should be taking a step forward, however incremental, might suggest that deep-pocketed investors have truly seen the writing on the wall with regard to legislated carbon abatement and the slow phase-out of fossil fuels.

But not everyone is convinced. Some scratched their heads at the idea of spending billions of dollars to harvest sunlight and transmit electricity thousands of kilometers, when it can be produced increasingly efficiently in European backyards. “It must once again be pointed out that the most successful method of harvesting solar power is with rooftop panels,” wrote the German daily Die Tageszeitung. “In just three to five years, power from the roof will be cheaper than electricity from the wall plug. The economic bar for desert power is, in other words, high. Solar power produced in a decentralized manner will likely always be the cheaper variety.”

The German broadcaster Deutsche Welle, meanwhile, quoted Frank Asbeck, the chief executive of SolarWorld, the largest German solar company, as saying, “Building solar power plants in politically unstable countries opens you to the same kind of dependency as the situation with oil.”

NYT

Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean

Projects to clean up the Mediterranean Sea, establish new sea routes and highways, and harness solar energy could be at the heart of new European efforts to engage with southern neighbors, according to the first set of concrete proposals published Tuesday.

Less than two months before the debut of a new Union for the Mediterranean, pioneered by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, the European Commission sought to put its stamp on the plan with a series of recommendations.

While its call for big spending projects in the region will be welcomed in Paris, the document issued Tuesday also proposes a further dilution of Sarkozy's original aim of giving the European Union's southern states a bigger role in the venture than northern EU counterparts. ...

What is not disputed is the thinking behind the plan: that previous initiatives have largely failed. Since 1995 the EU has engaged with southern neighbors through the so-called Barcelona Process but with few tangible results.

The new document concedes that the Barcelona Process suffered from "weak visibility and the perception by citizens that little is done to tackle their daily problems and real needs." European diplomats hope the new organization, known officially as the "Barcelona Process: Union for the Mediterranean," will give southern Mediterranean countries a greater stake because they will be on a level of parity with the EU.

Critics point out that a central problem will remain: the diverse southern Mediterranean membership, which includes Syria and Israel.

The commission said the new union should hold summit meetings every two years, but avoided endorsing any location for its headquarters. Tunis, however, has emerged as a prime candidate. The commission called for two parallel sets of co-presidencies - to be held by France for an initial six months on the EU side. Thereafter this would be held by the new president of the European Council or high representative for foreign affairs - posts established under the new Treaty of Lisbon.

The document released Tuesday called for improved maritime and road infrastructure, including new sea routes and upgraded port facilities, and a new road to link the Arab states of North Africa - Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya.

The new body should reinvigorate a plan approved in 2006 to clean the Mediterranean Sea of pollution, a 2007 program to develop solar power, and a proposal for a Euro-Mediterranean free trade zone by 2010, the document said.

IHT