Al Gore welcomes initiative to roll out solar power globally

14 July 2009

The DESERTEC Initiative will overcome hurdles in the rollout of solar power worldwide, according to former Vice President Al Gore.

‘No one wants to build the transmission infrastructure until the generation capacity is in place; but no one wants to risk building the generation capacity until the transmission is in place,’ Gore said.

In the face of such a challenge, Gore believes leadership is the answer.

Gore spoke just hours before 12 European companies signed an agreement to develop the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative in Europe. The initiative commits the 12 to developing business plans and a financing strategy for a $550bn rollout of concentrating solar power plants in North Africa to supply Europe with solar electricity transmitted over long distance lines. Under this scheme, the Sahara could be generating and transmitting as much as 700TW of electricity a year to Europe by 2050.

The group of 12 companies includes engineering giant Siemens, utilities RWE and E.ON, high voltage direct current power line market leader ABB, financial institutions Deutche Bank and HSH Nordbank as well as solar field suppliers, operators and component makers MAN Solar Millennium, ABENGOA Solar and Schott Solar.

In addition, Gore said Australia also had a crucial role to play in the fight against climate change.

‘Australia really can be an ‘early responder’ to the emergency of climate change,’ Gore said, pointing towards its six publicly-traded geothermal companies and two universities heavily involved in solar research.

Gore added that an Australian DESERTEC Initiative could connect Port Augusta to Perth and Port Hedland to open up the continent’s western deserts to solar and geothermal development.

Copyright © 2009 NewNet

Tags: solar

This story was published on Tuesday, July 14th, 2009 at 9:35 am and is filed under Africa, Europe, North America, companies, solar. You can follow any responses to article entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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