Environmentalists, and you already know this, face two different positions: some defend the implementation of renewable energies on a large scale, while others condemn the use of natural ecosystems for this purpose. Perhaps both are right, as one of humanity’s biggest mistakes has shown us: covering the Sahara with solar panelsbut we ended up losing 173 TWh and now there is only an empty, dark desert left.
Why don’t we cover the Sahara with solar panels? It’s not as simple as it seems
It has been quite encouraging to accept the utility of the Sahara Desert to generate renewable energy for the world by installing solar panels. But we can now be sure that if the project were to go ahead, it would have devastating ramifications for our planet’s climate.
Building solar panels in the world’s largest desert, better known as the Sahara Desert, was initially proposed in the early 2000s. The premise was simple: The Sahara also benefits from high levels of irradiation and could therefore facilitate the deployment of large-scale solar parks.
It was estimated that to provide adequate coverage to just one percent of the population, a huge amount of money would be needed. A mere 2% of the Sahara Desert is needed to produce enough electricity to supplement current global consumption rates of solar panels.
The experts were very clear: the biggest mistake in history had to be stopped.
The discoveries made showed negative implications for the advancement of the Sahara solar project, which had increased steadily in the years prior to the study. The other international consortium plans, such as the Desertec Industrial Initiative, already existed and gave rise to proposals for Large solar parks in the Sahara will export electricity to Europe and other places.
However, the study’s findings addressed aspects that highlighted the centrality of the global climate system as interconnected. Thus, the work demonstrated that while promoting the use of renewable energy resources is a purely noble cause, it is vital to understand the social implications of such activities and make necessary adjustments in strategy and approach.
What the experts discovered: why covering the Sahara with solar panels is not a good idea
The project to build a solar plant in the Sahara Desert received a major boost when a team of researchers from the University of Illinois and the University of Maryland published in 2019 in the journal Nature Climate Change brief data on the project. This project would have had a significant impact on regional and global climate conditions.
The key findings were:
- Reduced albedo: Solar panels are black and, as such, are darker than desert sand: they heat up more and lower the surface albedo. This would have increased the average temperature in the Sahara by 3°C, with some stations rising by up to 10°C.
- Altered rain patterns: If warming had increased further, it would have affected the circulation of currents in the atmosphere, resulting in less rainfall in the Sahel region south of the Sahara. This could have posed challenges, especially for the local population, as both are important sources of food, especially in Third World countries.
- Global temperature rise: The chain of climate impacts from the Sahara solar project would have affected the atmospheric system around the world, raising global average temperatures by approximately 0.16°C.
In total, the researchers said that because of the project’s harmful effects on the climate, the creation of 1,153 TWh of renewable energy per year was projected to be offset by a net loss of 173 TWh per year, which would have offset any gains that might have been expected from solar power generation.
A project like this was not going to be free of controversy (we have also seen it in the ethnic reservations of Texas), but we never imagined that it could become the biggest failure of humanity. These 173 TWh are not the only losses, because we must add the 2 billion dollars that were invested and were left idle. So, where do we put the solar panels? Meanwhile, we leave them at home, and with this you already know that we mean self-consumption.
