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Blake Ekelund

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Sahara desert as a solar farm.

Instead of looking at the Sahara desert as a vast unusable wasteland, look at it as good as gold!

Think... If 0.3% of this desert were covered in solar panels, we would have enough energy to power Europe!

Now take that scale to 1%. We could power the U.S and Europe without the use of Nuclear, Coal, and other non renewable "harmful" substances.

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Topics: desert enviroment future innovation life technology
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    Gail . 50+

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    Oct 23 2012: The problem is the infrastructure that allows that power to be moved about. What we need is better battery technology, though that is improving a lot. It would be good if batteries were environmentally friendly.
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      Frans Kellner 100+

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      TED Translator
      Oct 23 2012: It's possible to make hydrogene that can be shipped around the world.
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        Gail . 50+

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        Oct 23 2012: You're so right. Thank you.

      • John Smith 30+

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        Oct 23 2012: Yes, hydrogen that can be shipped or pumped through pipelines, or the energy can be beamed to far away places through microwave bundels reflected off specially designed satellites.

        In any case there's plenty of room in Spain for solar power as well, maybe we should start there.
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          Joshua Quinn

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          Oct 23 2012: There should be a mandate to have solar panels put on every roof of every man-made object, that would require the use of solar energy.
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        Krisztián Pintér 200+

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        TED Translator
        Oct 23 2012: a lot of things are possible, but none of them are viable. we don't need possible methods. we have a lot of possible methods around. we need viable methods. hydrogen is not one of them. hvdc is, but the initial cost is way too high.
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        Krisztián Pintér 200+

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        Oct 23 2012: no it is not already used, according to your own link. it is an emergent technology for special uses. btw i would advise a little critical thinking, and for example look for efficiency data. not finding? no surprise.

        wikipedia tells you: "The AC-to-AC efficiency of hydrogen storage has been shown to be in order of 40%, rendering hydrogen storage unsuitable for anything but special (mobile) applications."

        and this 40% does not contain shipping.

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