"I love that you've brought this to attention. An extensive database of uncommon but resistant and hardy plants/foods could be developed and organized by climate. Ease of growth and processing should also be taken in to account. I will try to…"
A crash course in changing the world.
DESERTEC: Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year
At present, about 80% of the world's energy consumption comes from fossil fuels, with only about 6-7% coming from renewable energy systems like biomass, wind, solar, wave etc. Given the current concerns about climate change and depleting fossil fuel supplies, we have a conflicting situation where developing countries are compelled by financial constrains to continue extracting fossil fuels while developed countries
attempt to shirk the financial burden of developing alternative energy systems because of narrow-minded nationalistic self-interest.
While the above debate continues, it is tragic to note that we have the technologies to solve these dilemmas. DESERTEC, a brain-child of the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), aims to harness the massive energy input of the Sun. Using Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power (CSP) plants and a method known as High-Voltage Direct Current transmission, the DESERTEC concept plans to provide electricity to the Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
As Dr. Gerhard Knies, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the DESERTEC Foundation noted, "Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year." In other words, the only reason why we have not transitioned from using fossil fuels or other controlled renewable sources like nuclear or hydrogen is because of vested interests and cultural lag in the face of rapid technological progress.
Equally amazing is the fact that not only the DESERTEC countries could benefit from a potentially unlimited energy source, but that the world's energy needs could be met by just harnessing one-hundredth of the world's desert surface area to tap the solar energy being wasted with each passing day. Not only do we have the CSP used by DESERTEC, but technological progress have finally given us a 100% efficient photovoltaic cell at a time when consumer equivalents are only about 17% efficient.
The issue with DESERTEC is that it is still limited by political barriers, not recognising that we are one planet. Were it not for the financial and political constrains, the North-South divide would be many steps closer to being bridged.
Even as governments and NGOs always lament about our energy problems, it is so frustrating we could solve it so easily using only one of the many renewable energy sources. We have not even considered the potentials of wind, wave, tidal and geothermal. Geothermal, alone, according to a 2006 MIT report, is estimated to be able to provide up to 4000 years worth of energy at current energy usage.
It is time for our species to grow up. As Carl Sagan noted, "A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet."
attempt to shirk the financial burden of developing alternative energy systems because of narrow-minded nationalistic self-interest.
While the above debate continues, it is tragic to note that we have the technologies to solve these dilemmas. DESERTEC, a brain-child of the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), aims to harness the massive energy input of the Sun. Using Concentrating Solar-Thermal Power (CSP) plants and a method known as High-Voltage Direct Current transmission, the DESERTEC concept plans to provide electricity to the Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.
As Dr. Gerhard Knies, Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the DESERTEC Foundation noted, "Within 6 hours deserts receive more energy from the sun than humankind consumes within a year." In other words, the only reason why we have not transitioned from using fossil fuels or other controlled renewable sources like nuclear or hydrogen is because of vested interests and cultural lag in the face of rapid technological progress.
Equally amazing is the fact that not only the DESERTEC countries could benefit from a potentially unlimited energy source, but that the world's energy needs could be met by just harnessing one-hundredth of the world's desert surface area to tap the solar energy being wasted with each passing day. Not only do we have the CSP used by DESERTEC, but technological progress have finally given us a 100% efficient photovoltaic cell at a time when consumer equivalents are only about 17% efficient.
The issue with DESERTEC is that it is still limited by political barriers, not recognising that we are one planet. Were it not for the financial and political constrains, the North-South divide would be many steps closer to being bridged.
Even as governments and NGOs always lament about our energy problems, it is so frustrating we could solve it so easily using only one of the many renewable energy sources. We have not even considered the potentials of wind, wave, tidal and geothermal. Geothermal, alone, according to a 2006 MIT report, is estimated to be able to provide up to 4000 years worth of energy at current energy usage.
It is time for our species to grow up. As Carl Sagan noted, "A new consciousness is developing which sees the earth as a single organism and recognizes that an organism at war with itself is doomed. We are one planet."
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