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WASHINGTON, Dec 22 (OneWorld.net) - Some 35 million Europeans could be powering their homes by 2020 from electricity generated by the sun in the deserts of Morocco, Libya, and Jordan, say researchers at the Center for Global Development. Public subsidies of about $20 billion would be needed over 10 years, but the savings in greenhouse gas emissions would be extremely significant.

• Solar power plants could soon mean big business in the world's deserts, and big environmental savings worldwide. © Center for Global Development / carma.orgEco-environmental expert Lester Brown recently published an analysis of the job-creating potential of renewable energy projects, particularly salient as the United States and other countries face an economic recession. Brown notes that while every $1 billion invested in coal-fired power plants generates some 870 jobs, the same investment in wind energy technologies would produce 3,350 jobs, with similar results for investments in solar-thermal power plants (2,270 jobs) and solar cell installations (1,480 jobs) on rooftops and other locations. Brown also estimates that $100 billion of U.S. government investment in renewable energy and energy efficiency projects would leverage $400 billion in private investments, and that a $500 billion federal investment over the next 12 years could leverage enough money to help cut global greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to stave off the melting of the Greenland ice cap and other key glaciers that sustain lives and livelihoods around the planet.

• Over the weekend, Barack Obama named John Holdren, a strong advocate of powerful action to confront global warming, to head the White House Office of Science and Technology and the president's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology. Speaking to OneWorld from the global climate negotiations in Indonesia in December 2007, Holdren noted the potential for global cooperation between developed and developing countries to not only reduce the threat caused by global climate change, but also to promote economic growth around the world. "I think the biggest obstacle to moving forward on the climate issue in the world today is the failure of the United States, up until now, to take serious steps to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions of our own country," said Holdren. The entire interview can be seen here.

• The mayor of one of Portugal's smallest and poorest municipalities was honored as a finalist for OneWorld's People of 2008 award for his efforts to launch one of the largest green business initiatives in the world -- a solar electricity generating plant situated in one of the sunniest spots of Europe. Now he's spearheading an eight-country project to create communities run entirely on renewable energy. 

Desert Power: The Economics of Solar Thermal Electricity for Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East

From: Center for Global Development

Kevin Ummel and David Wheeler

12/12/2008

A climate crisis is inevitable unless developing countries limit carbon emissions from the power sector in the near future. This will happen only if the costs of low-carbon power production become competitive with fossil fuel power.

In this CGD working paper, Kevin Ummel and senior fellow David Wheeler focus on a leading candidate for investment: solar thermal or concentrating solar power (CSP), a commercially available technology that uses direct sunlight and mirrors to boil water and drive conventional steam turbines. Solar thermal power production in North Africa and the Middle East could provide enough power to Europe to meet the needs of 35 million people by 2020.

Ummel and Wheeler compute the subsidies needed to bring CSP to financial parity with fossil-fuel alternatives. They conclude that large-scale deployment of CSP is attainable with subsidy levels that are modest, given the planetary stakes. By the end of the program, unsubsidized CSP projects are likely to be competitive with coal- and gas-based power production in Europe.

The question is not whether CSP is feasible but whether programs using CSP technology will be operational in time to prevent catastrophic climate change. For such programs to spur the clean energy revolution, efforts to arrange financing should begin right away, with site acquisition and construction to follow within a year.

Download the whole CGD working paper here.

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