Desert energy

January 15. United States and allied countries launch Operation Desert Storm against Iraq, a military operation characterized by some as an energy war. ... 

The process of nuclear fission was discovered more than half a century ago in 1938 by Lise Meitner (1878-1968) and Otto Hahn (1879-1968) in Germany. With the outbreak of World War II a year later, interest focused on the enormous amount of energy released in the process. At Los Alamos, in the mountains of New Mexico, a group of scientists led by J. Robert Oppenheimer (1904-1967) worked feverishly to produce the fission, or atomic, bomb. Many of the members of this group were exiles from Nazi Germany. They were spurred on by the fear that Hitler would obtain the bomb first Their work led to the explosion of the first atomic bomb in the New Mexico desert at 5 30 a.m. on July 16,1945. Less than a month later (August 6,1945), the world learned of this new weapon when another bomb was exploded... 

Particles and gases in the earth s atmosphere absorb about 25% of this energy and 25% is reflected back to space by the atmosphere, mostly from clouds. About 5% of the incoming solar radiation is reflected back to space from the surface of the earth, mostly from bright regions such as deserts and ice fields. A 1-square-meter surface (39 inches by 39 inches), placed above the atmosphere will collect about 1,370 watts of radiant... 

Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) (2008). Clean Power from Deserts. The DESERTEC Concept for Energy, Water and Climate Security. Hamburg The Club of Rome, www.trec-eumena.org. 

Of course the kind of land needed is quite different. Whereas solar energy can be harvested on the roofs of houses or in unfertile but sunny deserts, arable land is needed for biomass conversion of sugar or alcohol (at least wood should be able to grow). 

If solar energy were to supply the energy needs of the world s population, it would require large areas to be dedicated to it. These could be in sunny areas of low population such as deserts, or the oceans. It should be remembered that salt water is no barrier to the growth of many of these organisms. However, technological advances on this scale are obviously long term. 

The abundance of incident solar energy, particularly in large desert regions with few interruptions due to cloud cover, lends to the appeal of solar heat engines. Electrical power produced via thermal conversion of solar energy by means of a conventional Rankine cycle is technically achievable. 

Let us consider where the path we are on leads. Notably it appears one that includes the potential for massive wars over the remaining fossil fuel supplies. Whatever the pretences, the real points of interest for the Middle East deserts is the oil that lies beneath them, an interest the United States at least does not take lightly. Without a viable Energy Plan B as the energy-noose... 

The total energy reaching the earth amounts to 3 x 1024 J/year, which is about ten thousand times as much as the energy consumption of the mankind. For a conversion system of 10% efficiency, 1/50 area of the desert is enough to satisfy all the energy requirements. 

Earth s deserts receive 250-300 W/m2 of solar irradiance. If solar eneigy could be used with 10% efficiency, 4% of the sunlight falling on the deserts would provide all the energy used in the world in 2000. The solar cell17 described here has a conversion efficiency close to 7%. 

Energy and Environmental Engineering Center, Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV 89506... 

Authorities have observed that solar energy can be usefully collected optically from one square mile (2.6 square kilometers) of surface area, or even larger, and concentrated onto a central receiver by an anay of heliostats. Le independently steered mirrors. By judiciously spacing minors over 35% of the area, such a system in the desert southwest of the United States, for example. Could collect 2800 megawatt-hours thermal per day in midwinter and almost twice that amount of energy in midsummer. In order that the reflected radiation from this field be efficiently intercepted, the central receiver would have to be several hundred meters high. 

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