Self-breeding solar power

  "From the viewpoints of quality, quantity and chemistry, Sahara sand is hard to beat for use as silicon for solar cells"

Last week I wrote about a stunning example of innovation through putting previously un-associated concepts together to create something entirely new. Using sand in robotics is an innovation on the macroscopic scale – here’s one on a truly heroic scale. The quotation above is from Hideomi Koinuma at the University of Tokyo who leads The Sahara Solar Breeder Project, a joint initiative by universities in Japan and Algeria that aims to build enough solar power stations by 2050 to supply 50 per cent of the energy used by humanity. It’s simple in principle, but of course a little more tricky in upscaling and execution. All you have to do is build a silicon manufacturing plant in the desert, use the silicon to construct a solar power plant and use some of the power output to manufacture more silicon – the whole system is self-replicating, essentially breeding solar power generation. The tricky bits come in actually manufacturing silicon from desert sand, efficient transmission of the electricity generated, designing facilities sufficiently robust to withstand the harsh environment of the desert, and making the whole thing commercially feasible and competitive. But it’s all essentially do-able.

Here’s a description of the project from the Discover Magazine website that includes a video link – the graphic above is a screen shot from it. There’s also a piece on the New Scientist site titled “Sun and sand breed Sahara solar power“ – my kind of headline!

The 2 Ingredients for Self-Replicating Solar Power: Sahara Sand and Sun  

It’s such a fertile time in the green technology sector, solar power plants may soon begin reproducing.

Using two resources that the Sahara has plenty of, sun and sand, the Sahara Solar Breeder Project hopes to build factories that will refine the sand’s silica into silicon. That silicon will be used to build solar panels, which will power more silica-refining and solar panel factories, which will be able to build more solar panels, and on and on and on.

The potential for exponential growth allows for some extreme optimism: The project’s leaders say they could build enough power stations to meet half of the world’s energy needs by 2050. Project leader Hideomi Koinuma believes the project is key to solving the world’s energy crisis, saying:

“If we can use desert sand to make a substance that provides energy, this will be the key to solving the energy problem. This is probably doable. Moreover, the energy we continually receive from the Sun is 10,000 times the energy currently used by mankind. So if we can utilize 0.01% of it skillfully, we won’t have a shortage of energy, but a surplus.” [DigInfo TV]

The Sahara desert is about the size of the United States, but instead of being full of people and farms and towns the Sahara is almost empty of everything. Everything except sand, that is. Three and a half million square miles of it.

“From the viewpoints of quality, quantity and chemistry, Sahara sand is hard to beat for use as silicon for solar cells,” [Koinuma] says.

Though Koinuma is bursting with enthusiasm, desert sand has never been used to produce silicon-based solar panels before, so the team will have to perfect that technology first. Once they start building factories, they’ll have to cope with environmental hazards in the desert like sandstorms and shifting dunes.

If all of those endeavors are successful, the energy produced by the station will still need to be transferred from the desert to areas that need it, which requires superconducting power lines kept cold by liquid nitrogen–a technology which is difficult to handle in the best of circumstances, let alone in the middle of the empty desert. Koinuma believes the superconducting lines would be cost-effective, though another company called the Desertec Foundation is working on the same problem with a different approach.

“There is not really a need for superconductors. By using high-voltage direct current transmission lines it is possible to transport clean power from the deserts over long distances to centres of consumption,” says the Desertec spokesman – adding that the technology is already used in dozens of projects worldwide. “Transmission losses are fairly low – around 3 per cent per 1000 kilometres. Unlike superconductors, there is no need for cooling, while power transmission costs are just 1¢ to 2¢ per kilowatt-hour.” [New Scientist]

It will be interesting to see how the two projects play out–in the Sahara, there’s plenty of room for competition.

The Sahara Solar Breeder Project is currently supported by Japan’s International Cooperation Agency and Science and Technology Agency, universities in Algeria, and the International Research Project on Global Issues, which is providing funding for the problem-solving phase–a little over a million dollars a year for five years.

[Thanks to Brian Romans for the heads-up on the Discover Magazine link.]

Comments

[solar panel]

Well enough to post here. I never thought when I'll enter all the information of this kind but your post really helps is to share something me.Awesome here.I like your post. I am now waiting for your next post.So keep writing .

[John Dunn]

Staggering.

With potential fields of solar collectors,what happens to the ground beneath them? Does a different ecology develop? Or are we talking about giant fields of concrete?

[Sandglass]

John - thanks for the very good question (that I'm not really equipped to answer). First of all, one would hope that the "footprint" of such installations would be minimised - in many ways, desert sand should provide a sufficiently stable platform that concrete foundations can be kept to a minimum. But how they would mitigate against the effects of blowing and drifting sand is not clear, at least in the articles.

Then there's the shade that the installations would provide for desert life, and the part of the plan that appears to envisage re-vegetation as a component project.

Ironically, a recent piece in the New Scientist describes how the days of traditional silicon-based solar cells may be numbered, with the potential for their being replaced by nanoscale light-sensitive antennas that harvest infra-red radiation (see http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20827915.000-is-night-falling-on-classic-solar-panels.html).

[John Dunn]

Potentially exciting tech if the costs can be scaled. It still looks to be doing most of its generation during daytime, so I assume its still viable for the Sahara project?

Hmm, and... In your book don't you talk about how the dunes migrate? If there are fields of collectors surely they're at risk of being buried?

[Sandglass]

Yes, the new technology would certainly work well in the desert, but whether these "semiconductor diodes" use silicon or some other semiconductor - and therefore whether the silicon processing part of the project is still applicable - I'm not sure.

As for dunes, yes they would be a threat, but they do tend to congregate into extensive but confined areas (the self-accumulating nature of sand) and much of the desert is not covered in sand - which is, I assume, where the facilities would be best located.

[solar attic fan]

Exactly! Pretty good article. Very informative. Wow I'm so excited with that innovation!

[Ice Cream Cones]

You really make it seem so easy with your presentation but I find this topic to be really something which I think I would never understand. It seems too complicated and very broad for me. I am looking forward for your next post, I will try to get the hang of it!

[FL Roofing Contractor]

This is a great project and I hope they're successful in implementing it. I feel as if the more solar power we're able to harness the better.

[solar power]

B Green Solar Power is dedicated to providing affordable alternatives which help eliminate our country's dependence on foreign supplied oil, contribute to a cleaner healthier environment and alleviate the effects of rising energy costs.

[Roofing Contractor]

Solar power is definitely the way to go, and in the Sahara it just perpetuates itself.

[Ian]

One thing to remember is that Thomas Edison did numerous experiments before he got the right filament for the electric light bulb. so lets keep trying to find what we need to get a super conductor to bring solar power from the desert to the cities.