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Renewable energies could stretch the lifeline of the GCC's oil and gas exports and in some decades from now they even have the potential to develop into a major pillar of the economy, says a study by Eckart Woertz, an economist at the Gulf Research Centre in Dubai and author of Alternative Energy Trends and Implications for GCC Countries.
In this connection, a group called the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Co-operation has been working to create vast solar power plants in the Gulf and North Africa, producing power that would be exported into Europe via electrical cables.
The main proposal is Desertec, which aims to produce up to a quarter of Europe's power needs by 2050. Under the plan, hi-tech plants in North Africa using mirrors to concentrate solar rays would send electricity via high-voltage lines under the Mediterranean. The project has received the initial backing of the German Ministry of the Environment. Woertz says this project underscores the potential of the region to generate new sources of energy.
Already, the Mena region has become a hotspot for work in concentrating solar power plants. Seven of the 17 nations developing this technology are located in the region.
The work could help solar power become one of the key 'stabilisation wedges' needed to reduce carbon emissions and avert a potential climate change catastrophe later in the century.
Solar energy has been touted for years as a safer, cleaner alternative to burning fossil fuels to meet rising energy demands. However, environmentalists and others are increasingly concerned about the potential negative impact of solar cell (photovoltaic) technology.
Manufacture of photovoltaic cells requires potentially toxic metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium and produces carbon dioxide, which contributes to global warming.
Even relatively inert silicon, a major material used in solar cells, can be hazardous to workers if it is inhaled as dust.
Workers involved in manufacturing photovoltaic modules and components must consequently be protected from exposure to these materials.
There is an additional, probably very small, danger that hazardous fumes released from photovoltaic modules attached to burning homes or buildings could injure fire fighters.
None of these potential hazards is much different in quality or magnitude from the innumerable hazards people face routinely in an industrial society. Through effective regulation, the dangers can very likely be kept at a very low level.
The large amount of land required for utility-scale solar power plants, approximately one square kilometre for every 20-60 megawatts (MW) generated, poses an additional problem. But this problem is not unique to solar power plants.
Generating electricity from coal actually requires as much or more land per unit of energy delivered if the land used in strip mining is taken into account. Solar-thermal plants (like most conventional power plants) also require cooling water, which may be costly or scarce in desert areas.
What about wind power? It is hard to imagine an energy source more benign to the environment than wind power; it produces no air or water pollution, involves no toxic or hazardous substances (other than those commonly found in large machines) and poses no threat to public safety.
And yet a serious obstacle facing the wind industry is public opposition reflecting concern over the visibility and noise of wind turbines and their impact on wilderness areas.
One of the most misunderstood aspects of wind power is its use of land. Most studies assume that wind turbines will be spaced a certain distance apart and that all of the land in between should be regarded as occupied. This leads to some quite disturbing estimates of the land area required to produce substantial quantities of wind power.
According to one widely circulated report from the 1970s, generating 20 per cent of US electricity from windy areas in 1975 would have required siting turbines on 18,000 square miles, or an area about seven per cent the size of Texas.
In reality, however, the wind turbines themselves occupy only a small fraction of this land area and the rest can be used for other purposes or left in its natural state. For this reason, wind power development is ideally suited to farming areas.
In other settings, however, wind power development can create serious land-use conflicts. In forested areas it may mean clearing trees and cutting roads, a prospect that is sure to generate controversy, except possibly in areas where heavy logging has already occurred. And near populated areas, wind projects often run into stiff opposition from people who regard them as unsightly and noisy, or who fear their presence may reduce property values.
