150 million * 592 is a bit more than 8.9 billion $

​@Real Engineering ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤🎉🎉🎉🎉

89 BILLION DOLLARS

It's 0.088 billion

$89B is still chump-change. The 2022 US Federal Gov spent that every 5 days!

Make an correction in the video then :P

I’m in Australia and there’s a big factor that you’ve missed. Ironically, panels don’t work as well in extreme heat. Sun light = good, extreme heat = bad.

They need to cool them with artificial aoses 😃

Thermal solar required. Leave solar panels for New Zealand and Canada.

Watercool them and use the heated water to power steam turbines and condensers

@Dale Anderson nothing like a magic wand creating panels from no available resources! Dreamland thinking!

I was involved with solar in the UAE and sand was a major problem because the panels become ever so slightly damp with condensation in the morning and coated with a fine layer that had to be washed off. I seem to remember the efficiency dropped by up to 80%. It's the same problem with cars left out overnight. We were even looking at automated rinsing systems. It was a decade ago and I don't know if they solved the problem.

​@Mhlengi Ndlovu under extreme pressure the boiling point raises .. but yes.. it's superheated steam that is powering the turbines.

Having lived in Dubai for a few years, I was thinking as I watched this, why hasn't the UAE invested in Solar. Thank you for your comment. Now I can understand

@Potato_the_king You do understand there is water in the air, yes? There is water in the Desert yes? Did you know you can collect water from the air in a dry Desert? You're learning new things today congratulations. Sorry I forgot to pack your lunch. I'll remember the juice box next time too, but going to go get some cigarettes first.

@Mhlengi Ndlovu It is super-heated steam at 5 atmospheric pressure.

Great video, and very informative. It is sad to see North African countries can't benefit from the abundant solar energy just yet due to huge risks for such a big project. Hopefully, their political stability would increase to a degree so that harnessing solar power and selling the electric to Europe becomes a viable business -- not only for people there but for the environment as well.

@Ithri Sky Remember why globalization happened in the first place? Cost advantage. Major industrial nations could probably do most manufacturing in-house, but prohibitive cost disadvantages would preemptively kill many innovations before prime time.

Don't worry 😉we will do it alone without any help and we sell it in international market

Well, sadly the narrator doesn't even seem to understand the very fundamental difference between power (W, kW, etc.) and energy (Wh, kWh, etc.).

I understand that for long-haul energy transmission it's more efficient to use the electricity to split water to hydrogen and then pipe the hydrogen to the destination. There is already a gas pipeline between Sicily and Tunisia - it could be used to send the gas back instead. The best source would be seawater, head distillation and electrolysis - not damns of rain or ground water.

I think we learned that relying on energy from people who view us unfavorably did not work out the first time. And the distribution of the energy was much easier.

@Twisty 350 macron doesn’t get a good response anywhere he goes

Yeah that’s why Europe news fusion reactors

For more than 50 years they were viewing you more than favourable (huge mistake for them). But then again, EU thought - well, we can change their government, reduce their power, and obtain their resources much cheaper, if not for free. You've got what you've got.

PS: a hunter goes into the woods, is caught by a bear, suffers abuse from the bear. second time, same thing. the third time, same thing, then the bear says: "hey, you don't come here for the hunting, do you"

I have watched the desert dwellers work with solar panels. Deserts equal dust and sand. We are not there yet. Small set ups that are easily cleaned and maintained by the direct user seem to be a good option.

The Moroccan coast has winds coming from the Atlantic ocean cool and without much sand.

don’t underestimate the grasshopper storms in Africa.

Beyond the technical and scientific issues, there's also the problem of energy dependence. Giving another country control over your power is insane.

@DrabberFrog Mate we are already interconnected like that. So even if there is a political dispute with Africa, it's gvt wouldn't disrupt the trade fearing the same could happen to them. You are wrong about what is happening surrounding war between Russia and Ukraine. While Europe is firmly against Russia for starting this war they did not stop buying fossil fuel from them and neither did Russia stop trading their fossil fuel to an ally to Ukraine who are sending them weapons!. And regarding UK it was their decision, Russia didn't declare that there will be a trade ban. Russia is still supplying 15% of each of both oil and gas imports of EU. So this fear that a trading partner would cut of trade due to a geopolitical disturbance or conflict has no basis and his frankly not possible in current global env. Also this is the exact reason why trade agreements are made. Either partners would loose a large sum disrespecting it along with trust from rest of their other partners affecting their trade in long term. P.S: We should be prepared for such global interconnection by now it's been more than 100 years since a global market as born. No country can survive on it's own...having such a dream will only result in degradation of your economy.

@suresh kumar you really don't understand how geopolitics works. What if there was some big political issue that Europe and those African countries disagreed on? What if they used electricity they send to Europe as leverage and threaten to cut them off if they don't comply with what they want? Same thing happened recently with Russia and Ukraine, Europe imports a ton of gas from Russia so when Europe pledged their support for Ukraine Russia cut off their oil.

This take is a stupid take given current global conditions. Tech issues far less and can be overcome and we are interdependent already on other basic needs such has food, clothing, raw material etc...Most countries fossil fuel and fissile power plant are also mostly dependent on other countries. So this fear is just unwanted paranoia. And economical limitation should be overcome if we have to convert to green energy and we are running out of time. Building any infrastructure from ground up is gona cost a lot. What matters is it's operation cost and even more so it's effect on our environment at this point.

Tell that to Germany

So we need that climate change.

Good stuff. I have been debating on going solar on my roof, but expanding the panels to handle 3x what I need. If the power companies were pushed to pay wholesale on more than I use, this would be viable. Unfortunately, local laws have it where the credits will be wiped out after a year.

Credits are sold in many other industries, including Tax Credits.

@Ryan Kuypers The really only green energy (not counting nuclear since while it is the single best energy source option we have its not renewable) source that produces enough power to offset the carbon/green house gas cost it cost to build would be hydro and even then it depends on the river and has its own set of enviromental issues.

tip: calculate your power requirements, then multiply by 7. the average solar panel only produces 15% of its rated capacity, on average, in a day. so if you want to be truly energy independent, you will need a lot more panels.

We should be careful about the operating cost of PV. I worked in the KSA for a year and although skies are clear, there's a lot of dust in the air and there's an issue with water needed to keep the panels clean so they can maintain their efficiency

The wind coming from the Atlantic ocean is pretty clear from dust.

Very well done. This explains why simple "one assumption fits all" thinking so prevalent in US energy policy falls short. Thank you.

Interesting video, well made. For me a good level of factual background. Those napkin calcs are I think very useful in demonstrating where the obstacles are. For me the intresting thing reinforced by it is the difficulty of replacing European power generation with renewables. The quantities required are just too great.

Re "difficulty of replacing European power generation with renewables -- quantities required are just too great -- ": exactly right, when we consider that European industry, excluding that of Monaco, was built up off of an immensely thick and broad continental seam of coal that underlies no other land mass, as far as I know (Jared Diamond, 'Guns, Germs and Steel'). So how we can substitute all that with solar panels and windmills to power the industry here is self-evidently impossible. It wd be different if we only had to power the roulette wheels of Monaco and the London Eye. But all those casting foundries and metal-rolling mills of Germany, Poland, Czechia and Slovakia, and so on and so on.... Very good video nonetheless: main conclusion, affirmed by many factors, is that power is best generated as close as possible to the place it is used. Ergo, more on modular molten-salt nuclear reactors, please.

As a Moroccan citizen i really hope to see my country making huge steps towards this, and fix issues they facing esp the huge water consumption and be able to produce enough electricity to power the country and eventually an energy exporter !

@Waqas Ahmed The wealthier Arab nations are very far away, much further than Europe, and they have deserts and sun too. I think 2 steps are relevant: 1. Morocco can become independent of fuel imports. 2. Morocco can become a part of the European power grid. Selling and buying whatever is needed.

Even if you can't export to Europe, I'm sure Morocco could export to other wealthier Arab nations.

@John Slugger You are waisting the time of us all, and you try to paddle falsehoods. It is good I was there to correct you.

@Karsten Schuhmann Your a waste of my time.

We recently did a short school project on Nigeria and ~40% of their population is off their grid/doesn't get reliable electricity. Using local solar they can support their people without heavily investing in grid infrastructure. Solar is a win internally in Africa.

Yes, they will benefit by reliable higher density power. We have that - fossil fuels

I'm a Nigerian and I'll like to know more about that project and how to implement it especially at the North due to the abundance sunlight.

@Delt4_Cr4wfish Thats why one uses batteries.

Amazing doc. Excellent voice off, planned edition and deep information as narrative. Please keep this lifesaving information flowing.

We are actually doing a case study on the noor 3 facility in my first year engineering maths class! Very amused I came across this over breakfast.

There is also always the issue of putting all that energy through a few solid lines, where it becomes a target for terrorists or military. Even fuel pipelines have been targeted or threatened.

The Australia-Asia Power Link is still a go as far as I know. Power to be supplied to Singapore and later Indonesia via the world's largest solar plant, the world's largest battery, and the world's longest submarine power cable. 20 gigawatts to be delivered for a cost of AU$30 billion by 2027.

An update... the project has gone bust as of early 2023. They haven't even decided where exactly to put the solar farm, never mind installing a single panel. The liquidators are now trying to sell off the project...

Intellectually we're headed in the correct direction with the ambition of dicovering an optimum system that's cheap to create, easy to maintain, and cost effective (surplus energy and profitability). We've already discovered so many that aren't useful for mass uses. (example: hydrogen, good for commercial/private, not appropriate for country residential usage). I love where we're going with the ideas floating around. Love that sht. I'd rather be in a room full of people discussing ideas on how to improve the lives of (locals, then neighbors, then international). Whatever method we decide on in the future, will hopefully be best for mankind as a whole and do as little damage to earth as possible. (that may just be idealistic). I do love when engineers start spitting out numbers and the massives (hopefully) realize, hrmm, that's not going to work. Lets keep trying. Excellent video! Was fun to watch, fun to learn from aswell. Keep it up!

So what about Chile's massive potential of energy production in the Atacama desert (photovoltaic) and Patagonia (eolic)? Maybe the low local demand of energy may be a benefit for exporting stacked energy in the shape of hydrogen from water desalination electrolysis plants, specially considering that every in Chile is close to the coast. It's just the perfect industry for my country

@Phoenix042X Sunlight is free, so efficiency isn't so important. The important things are the cost of land, the capital cost of solar panels, and the interest rate. Half the efficiency for a quarter of the cost would be a good deal. Even though the Atacama is far south, the cost of land is low.

You're right - that's why they opened a solar thermal plant in the Atacama desert last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Dominador_Solar_Thermal_Plant

problem with getting hydrogen out of water (no matter what source the electricity comes from) is that when you burn the hydrogen in combustion or get electrical power from it in a fuel cell, is that you get even less energy out than you put in to get the hydrogen in the first place. You don't even break even.

Ivanpah Solar electric power system is name of the Heliostat based Thermal Installation ( 2 systems, a third in construction)

Gorzux Matthew, Mikko and Phoenix have a point. Without fresh water photovoltaic flat panels cannot be separated from accumulated dust. High temperatures reduce the efficiency of the cells. But there is a solution using power towers illuminated by heliostats. 2 very large installations are operational right on the border of California and Arizona next to interstate 15 in the desert. Thermal energy is collected by thousands of steerable mirrors (heliostats) and using steam turbines, generators feed the grid. At the wrong time of the day. So they use a molten salt storage system. But in Chile you can do much better using your idea of sending the electric power to the nearby coast and generate with hydrolysis hydrogen. Hydrogen is hard to transport, too voluminous. Here is what you can do: Collect from the cement industry the copious co2 produced and using the Sabatier reaction ,convert the co2 and the hydrogen to methane (natural gas) . Liquefy it at -162C and transport it by truck any where it is needed in compact form. Part of the product you can distribute in pipelines in gaseous form as natural gas, with some hydrogen added. Or using the Fisher-Tropsch process convert it to liquids (kerocene). Since this collection of co2 is desirable and Elon Musk is promoting this, he might finance such a system. The heliostat system erected in the Atacama desert can be simplified, because no storage is required. Hace mucho tiempo habia una guerra entre nosotros , Abaroa era nuestro heroe ( que se rinda su abuela!) Hoy tenemos que cooperar.

'volatile countries' is actually all the explanation you need ;-) Thanks for the video!

Thanks, I love your videos... I'm also very interested in how African countries would use Green Energy for domestic use, since the African population is growing and African energy needs are exploding... It seems like the climate change fight will be fought in Africa as well... The biggest factor seems the initial investment, because Green Energy is still very expensive, and many African countries are almost bankrupt... that's why it's so important that Germany, Danmark, Belgium invest so much in Solar Energy, so the innovation cycle is acccelerated, and Africa will be able to buy cheap Green Energy Technology within 5 or 10 years...

I find it fascinating that one of the best ways of generating energy is still just to heat water up and use the steam.

I was extremely curious about this. Whose idea was it to put a convoluted steam farm in the desert? Why can't solar panels that move energy without a conduit like the panels to charge mobile power banks just be scaled up in quantity? Maybe it would provide less power but less power is better than "we don't have water for this crap (cancels project)".

It makes more sense for each region to provide its own power based on regional needs and resources. Cuts down on power loss, transporting, lower costs over all, and safer.

Absolutely!

Your hitting the nail on the head particularly with grass roots development = there are some things you are un aware of that could help that is in the average back yard- vacuum tubes are very effective even in apartments for hot water - small wind turbine is often good in rural conditions and complementary with solar and more than anything implementing water / electric technology into the system = water can be used as a battery when combined with the Tesla turbine developed 100 years ago in the form of cold steam that works on temperature/ pressure differential (if you can get your head around that)= is similar to how phases change works in a heat pump- the buy produce is distilled water- also using water via electrolytes to produce hho gas/ water gas / browns gas-that has many users (industry wise/ health wise agriculture and more - in short distances it can be turned back to electric and buy produce of pure water= most of these conditions are suitable for back yard situation particularly when done from basic design- is implemented into building design etc of storage and distribution = it works best on a small scale

Nice to see a YT channel taking a broader, more realistic view of technological 'solutions' for a change.

one of my professors calls engineering: the law of returning misery this channels shows why

What is the life expectancy of this system? Long term costs are also something that need to be factors. Also, what happens during sand storms? That's alot of glass to clean off.

Between 2014 and 2016, the largest battery storage facilities with feed-in capacities/energy storage capacities of less than 10 MW/10 MWh were built in Germany at costs of approx. €1000/kW or kWh. In May 2017 work started on the world’s largest battery store, rated at 50 MW/300 MWh, in Japan. In August 2017, a 16 MWh plant was inaugurated in Chemnitz (Germany). The cost was €10 million, which corresponds to €625/kWh. These examples show that very large power storage units can be made available by means of a modular design. Their specific costs over the last two years have been around €1000/kWh, but with a downwards trend. At €1000/kWh, the cost of storing one terawatt hour is €1 trillion. This would only be enough to cover the average electricity demand in Germany for 15 hours. To deal with a 10-day lull in the wind in winter, when light levels are low, batteries would be needed to store 16 TWh. To do this, the worldwide annual production of such batteries (35 GWh in 2013) would have to increase by a factor of 450. Even the Tesla Gigafactory, which produces 500,000 lithium-ion batteries per year, could meet only a fraction of this demand when operating at full capacity, even assuming – somewhat implausibly – that the necessary raw materials were available. The cost of storing 16 TWh would be around 16 trillion euros. Even with efficiency gains of 500% in battery technology, trillions of euros would still be necessary. Moreover, the durability of lithium ion battery systems is quite poor – typically around 10 years – so this level of spending would have to be repeated on a regular basis. The use of batteries to absorb the fluctuating output of renewables plants is thus far removed from any economic and physical reality.

True, batteries are of limited viability at this scale. I don't think anybody really plans this. Luckily there are other ways of storing energy, like dams, or, way less efficiently but very scalable with manageable issues, hydrogen.

The engineering feat of mankind is undoubtedly a spectacle that will surely leave its footprint on existence.

There is a CSP tower based plant being built in south africa as well, i have been there It only has 100 MW power generating capacity though

So... people are smart enough to build a solar panel but not smart enough to eliminate dust? It's a dirty energy game and I am very glad more and more people are seeing it.

I dont even think the dust issue was mentioned in this video, they even said they used regular water to clean

Meanwhile NASA is facing the same dirt issue trying to put people on Mars

This is all fascinating. On the surface if someone said to me "let's turn the Sahara into a giant solar plant" I would think it's a good idea. You bring up a lot of good points.

@Yusri Saadun That’s great. Woke energies don’t power anything.

@moh mab Starving people steal all sorts of things but they're not the ones taking power plants hostage or tearing down power lines and scraping them. Stealing food is forgivable, only a true criminal steals a power plant.

@Len Gould that's his point, to a layman who has no knowledge of how solar actually works, "lots of land + lots of sun = big good solar power" kinda makes sense

Solar panels are the wrong tech to use. Too much waste and rare minerals needed. There is a better and easier way: Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector technology by CNIM - Concentrating solar power plant

12:30 Yep, the way to go is, use solar panels for local electricity needs locally. Use solar panels for H2 and other gases/fuels in countries like this for airplanes and ships.

could you also discuss what happens to the solar panels at end of life?

If they are like Nevada in the US, the panels are laying on the ground disintegrating due to the heat and the solar field is no longer useful. There is a long ways to go on this technology

@Aiba Sei Yes of course, it emits zero CO2, it is concentrated form of energy which means that existing transmission lines can be used, it is safe and scalable, and it will provide base-load energy until humanity can get fusion energy off the ground.

@Ernst so is it better to use nuclear energy?

@‘Sup Chef yes, but no one is claiming fossil fuels to be ZERO EMISSION. Not to mention there is a multitude of other concerns besides carbon emissions.

Great Video, could you post a video about solar desalination of ocean water? Seems like the next big humanity jump because there is a problem with lack of water and another with the rising of the oceans levels, seems like killing 2 birds with one stone. I imagine little boats with solar panels in the water sending clean water towards land through hoses, is this very crazy?

@Michael Murphy Yeah, maybe it is better to send the water with salt altogether to an inland solar central that can do a more efficient work avoiding the excess of salinity. The navy or other ship probably do it to provide the tripulation with clean water, but that´s in small quantities. My idea of millions or billions of super little solar boats sending clean water to firm terrain seems very futuristic and unrealistic. For instance, each boat would need maintenance and the conditions in water are much more unstable than in land.😅

The navy (and probably most other modern ship) do this all the time. The biggest issue is what to do with the brine (leftover salt/water mixture) during the desalinization. Normally this is pumped overboard, as the overall change is pretty miniscule, but you have to be several miles out to sea as it the higher salt concentration can hurt the local area. So to make this effective, you'd need fairly stable rigs, similar to oil rigs, several miles out to sea piped to the shore and then to where ever the water needs to go. This would naturally result in the destruction of whatever sea life happens to be around the rig.

Love the idea of renewable energy and loved the idea of desalination boats. Anything that aims to produce a resource that sustains life is a worthy pursuit. That being said, I do not think renewable energy production for the sake of affecting climate change is a worthy pursuit. It is proving to be unstable at best and expensive to run and maintain. Climate change will occur regardless of our attempts to affect it. A better investment is into ways we can adapt and live with the effects of climate change. Like the desalination boats idea.

An often overlooked problem with solar is that it hogs square footage . Its nice on roofs of domestic homes . But for the love of god making solar farms on agricultural grounds is insane 😂 im looking at you belgium

Agriphotovoltarics is a thing. You can farm below the panels. It works for certain crops in Germany, but it surely is interesting for southern Europe.

$150 million to cross the Strait of Gibraltar (about 8 miles) is not terribly expensive. For comparison, the highway system in the US costs about $8 million per mile, and we have a LOT of highways. This puts the underwater transmission cables at about 2.5 times more expensive than a 4-lane highway through a cornfield. Considering how *everyone* would use the transmission cables (as opposed to just the local residents using a highway) I'd say this expenditure is a huge win as far as price.

@Luitzen Hietkamp Agri photovoltaics seems useful for Spain. Use the panels to shade plants.

Spain is also a very sunny place and putting the electricity generation in Spain would save on transmission and maintenance and probably also on theft and sabotage/terrorist activity. So even if a panel in Spain produces less than a panel in the Sahara desert, it's probably more efficient to place the panels in Spain. Morocco should invest in sustainable energy, but not for Europe, but for its own citizens.

There are a couple of points left out, such as temperature, cost of land and intermittency based on location. Temperature is an efficiency factor for PVs and installing them in a desert where temperature goes beyond 45 C is not a very feasible idea. Cost of land in Germany is multiples higher than cost of land in Morocco. Finally, in Germany PVs energy supply will be more intermittent than that of Morocco's.

Since PV fit on roofs I don't want to hear about land cost until over 80% of roofs are covered in PV. It is an excuse to do nothing, probably sponsored by lobbyists.

@Paulman50 My, that's an old chestnut. Every reduction and potential reduction in emissions takes us a step away from self destruction. Buy a battery and study it closely. New advances are occurring daily. if we had stopped after the first fails at flying, we wouldn't be flying around the globe, nor trying to reach the stars.

also solar panels often get stolen in africa, i was there when they build a big solar plant and they gave up because after some months half of the plant was missing

@Ggoddkkiller Interesting arguement. However, we had the muskets, you had the spears.

So the people of the region must have plenty of low cost, clean, renewable solar electricity... right? No! Algeria gets most of its electricity from natural gas. They could literally shut down all their Co2 producing power stations and go green... but won't. Why can't Algeria can't supply solar power within its own country, even with all this solar potential? How is this possible? I lived in Africa for years. I love Africa. There will always be a special place in my soul for her. Africa is... Africa. Change happens very, very slowly. Africa can feed the world, yet has famished people. Money will not speed up progress. The complexities are way beyond anything imaginable. You will never understand Africa untill you live there.

A option is to use the power and transform to hydrogen. Easier to stock and transport

Instead of electrical grids, they could theoretically produce aluminium powder, and transport it in vessels everywhere in the world, to use it like "new coal" maybe also in existing conventional power plants, instead of coal, and deliver aluminium oxide back to the solar power plant, to reproduce aluminium powder again.

@rcm If the aluminum powder will be produced from solar-, wind-, geothermal- power, and not, from electricity, generated by coal burning plants, we have much less CO2 extraction. In the world, very much electricity is produced by burning coal, and if people could replace some part of this production through generation by burning of aluminum powder? At least in the cities? Where is problem? Or is it better for you, to breath smoge and CO2?

CO2?

Some rough viability calculations would be nice. Eg how much material needs to be shipped in order to transport MWh equivalent.

This was an interesting and educational video on alternate energy .

We would need the solar farms to be distanced far enough apart so as one decreases power as the sun sets, the others take up the slack Because storing and moving energy is a nightmare

You also forgot to mention the inverters are now perfect inverters, Inverters have loss. That loss is normally between 5-20% of the total electric load.

Generation tends to be the focus, while transmission and storage have enormous engineering challenges as well. But advances for both are coming, too.

Dios te bendiga y Dios bendiga a Todos los que estan leyendo esto! Deseo que tengan un hermoso dia! Buscad a Dios mientras pueda ser hallado! Jesus es el camino y el unico camino y regresa pronto! Recuerda cuando te sientas que no eres amado... el mayor sacrificio se hizo por amor! EL SUICIDIO NUNCA ES LA RESPUESTA! Porque de tal manera amó Dios al mundo, que ha dado a su Hijo unigénito, para que todo aquel que en él cree, no se pierda, mas tenga vida eterna. S. Juan 3:16 RVR1960 La paga del pecado es muerte (infierno) pero Cristo pagó nuestra deuda en la cruz para nuestra salvacion! Debemos volvernos a Dios y apartarnos de nuestros caminos pecaminosos, confesar que Jesús es el Señor y creer con nuestro corazón que fue resucitado de entre los muertos por Dios, y  debemos de ser bautizados en el nombre del Padre, del Hijo y del Espíritu Santo y vivir por Su palabra y mandamientos! Confia que Dios ayudara con el resto! Busca a Dios, antes de que sea muy tarde! Hoy podria ser tu ultimo dia en la tierra! Que tengas un hermoso dia! -❗️❗️❗️

@Dean Simmons All true however transmission and storage is still the holdup to broader use. I'm ALL for it of course, without these and other alternatives to fossil fuels we're going to be perpetually in trouble.

The 3rd generation solar cells are already here. They're twice as effective in low light and blue light spectrums, last three times as long in the sun, gather 60% more energy throughput the day, and are significantly more durable due to their solid copper backing. They've been available since 2013. 😊🌎☀️

@scout360pyroz hh

This commendable debate piece should also consider long-distance transmission using superconductivity, especially subterranean employment of high-temperature superconductors cooled with cheap liquid nitrogen.

If only engineering ever worked by just hoping that you could scale things up…

I have never seen a YouTuber transition from his video content into advertising so smoothly and effortlessly in my life. I'm very impressed! Great content too. 👌

Interesting. I thought the exact opposite.

Deliberately trying to hide what is an ad (like he's doing) is not cool. It's even illegal in EU btw.

I’m impressed that you are able to think that. Ha ha

We need to use all methods for energy production, and this article shows that it does not pay to concentrate on only one source, but even Texas which is using all forms of production can have problems in extreme weather.

I'd LOVE a video about renewable energy storage issues, and I'm sure millions of others will too.

@Raven4K Definitely! When will we build a Dyson Sphere around Sagittarius A*?

makes you wonder if Africa's solar power generation rate is that high how high is a solar panel generate from space in say a microwave power station?🤔

I live in Kenya and solar here is incredible since there is no true "winter", its only sunny and rainy season so there is not less sunlight or less sun hours around the year

@grindupBaker Yes. I, too, have solar panels. They are very easy to clean, when they are your panels on your home. Solar panels lose generating capacity over the length of transmission. A solar panel on your roof will supply more power than one that's located on another continent. I'm not against solar, I have solar....but because I have panels, I know what they can and can not power. Building a solar farm that will power a home in another continent is extremely environmentally irresponsible. What effects will the cable have on the sea life? How will the panels be decommissioned at the end of their lifespan? No source of energy is really "green". What is the environmental impact vs. the amount of energy produced? That is the equation you must consider to determine what is environmentally responsible and what is simply exploitation of Africa.

If solar in Africa were as great as they claim, African people would have free energy.

@Real Engineering You’re still framing this as imperialism when it’s a win win for both continents. MENA earns a fortune from exporting Oil and will do the same with Solar. Local populations will be the first recipients of cheap solar electricity. This video was released a month before yours. Did you not know about this project? https://youtu.be/iJunxkln578

There is Gemasolar, near Sevilla (Spain). Also a solar farm, with a tower positioned in the center of many circles with solar panels.

@Marcus Lobenstein watch the video, solar thermal salt power @130/kwh, solar panels 30/kwh. Also molten salt need lots of other materials, expensive to boot. Backup energy needed to keep Nacl molten . Thats why the plant in nevada only worked for 4 years!

Spanish deserts seem more suitable but im Not an engineer

Unfortunately panels output suffer in extreme heat... there are panels that perform better though and the industry has moved greatly toward being affordable. Storage of energy is the next great step

I haven’t read all of the comments so please forgive me if it has been covered. To my understanding seen in other videos the Amazon depends on winds carrying elements from the soil to the Amazon rain forest for it to survive, first would this be interrupted by doing this.

I hope that powering Africa is somewhere within the plans of harnessing Africa’s solar to power the rest of the world.

its not. Africa is seen as a resource.

Does someone know how much photovoltaik in marocco produces in the critical months december, january and february (in comparsion to summer)? In these months in germany, they unfortunately produce almost nothing.

it could be practical though to spread probably largely decentralized solar power systems (like for one household or one village) through desert and desert-adjacent inhabited areas to replace wood and charcoal for cooking, and also provide some electricity for electronic devices to aid in education etc.. I hear areas like the sahel have long had a problem with trees being cut down for firewood, when they are desperately needed to hold off desertification and graze goats and such. countering desertification locally by use of solar power probably wouldn't make a difference for the climate, but it would help to reduce the displacement of people in those areas, which is generally going to be a huge worldwide problem in the coming decades. it would also be nice in that it would empower poor people, whereas the plans to export african solar power to europe would as usual benefit corporations and corrupt officials. well, the solar power would probably also be routed to some nearby cities, but certainly not to villages in the middle of nowhere.

@mjolnir A battery bank would be the easiest however a water tower with pump and turbine would also be highly useful since it could store water in the tower during daylight and let it out at night to run the turbine as part of normal water usage

mjolnir batteries. maybe just lead acid for chwap weak setups, or perhaps repurposed lithium ion batteries that no longer hold enough charge for electric vehicles, but would still work for stationary use.

CRUDE OIL PRICE IS VERY MUCH HIGH.IT SHOULD FALL TO 65$ TO 55$......

Love how he first says that solar power in Africa could be life changing for them. Then goes on about how we can create connections that supply Europe lmao

@TK Blouch The Weather and the fact it's the only arable land.

@Andrew Ryan they settled because of weather.

@N1ko0L you mean Europe would steel that

yes very sick. I've stopped that clip after that lol crazy

@Midnight They can't do that to Algeria. Moreover, Algeria is not poor.

5:17 What about the issue of DC cable cross sectional area. IR losses in the cable are proportional to each conductor segment. You would need a bloody huge DC cable to counter-act the losses, hence the reason for always using AC transmission.

Bigger diameter wire is to offset losses at lower voltage. A/C won because the tech to step its voltage high for lower loss transmission and back down for safer consumption was easier. We more have better tech to step up DC voltage, but it’s not as simple and cheap as a transformer. It’s not yet going to be used all over your house but for long distance transmission it has some strong advantages, and it’s own disadvantages.

I can be wrong, but I think you should have similar production in Almería, Spain, and the infrastructura is already there.

There is a lot of good information about the requirements for large scale solar power generation in northern Africa for Europe in this video. Thank you. The name of the video and somewhat political interpretation tone of some of it were at odds with the facts presented. From those facts it appears there are no significant impediments to building this solution other than the scale of the investment and time to construct it. The tone of the video seems to try to hype controversy by stating straightforward requirements as though they are impractical, which they do not in fact appear to be.

Fascinating and informative video. One missile into the centre of each cripples the entire output and the lights all go out everywhere... Hmmm..

I see a really awesome game like Factorio or a mod that focuses on electricity generation and distribution in a more complex and realistic way. This is fascinating stuff. Enough so that I feel I chose the wrong career.

@J you're staggeringly naive. If you want to depend on renewables in Germany, you'd need something like a 2-5 Terawatthours of storage. Cost aside, at the moment installing such energy storage would require about something like 5-10x total *worldwide* yearly production of all lithium ion batteries. In many specialties, anyone in academia can write anything and all it a 'study'. And get it peer reviewed. Look at the career of Diederik Stapel. Dozens and dozens of papers, over a decade.

@J I mean, if a system doesn't really work that well under wildly optimistic conditions, what hope is there in the real world ?

@Y. T. Yes, because the place to learn about the real world is a wildly inaccurate game.

Isn't there also power loss when DC (generated by solar panels) is converted to AC prior to transmission so transmitting in DC would save that?

You dont need cables, the best way would be to put a giant de-salination plant next to the solar plant on the coast using the immense power to create pure water from sea water, then use a huge pump to pressurise a giant water main to somewhere in europe that has altitude and a hydro electric dam. You can also use the pure water to create a giant forest in africa too

@Paul I guess that the infrastructural problems of pumping large volumes of water to Europe to create water batteries would be very similar to the problems of transmitting the electricity itself, and probably even more inefficient. I think that the desalination idea has some merit though. Using the surplus energy to desalinate seawater and then using the sea water to irrigate the desert and other parts of Africa as well as replacing some of the water lost through the cooling and cleaning of panels could solve a lot of problems, both environmental and economic.

You're talking about having some 50 to 100 horsepower motors running huge pumps to move these massive amounts of water around. Do you have any idea how far you'll get running these big motors from a pv system. That's the problem we are having in the states. We can build big solar farms that are adequate for powering our homes, but try running any big industry on the system and you'll find that it won't go very far.

@donald duck It's not perpetual motion, the energy is from the sun...

Why not just build one huge solar array above each city that provides both shade and electricity?

One more little thing i once met a person in the 80 ties who was able to produce independed his own electricity and the gov tryed to let him pay taxes on this its a mad world

Great engineering lesson, and great message about the colonial spirit of this kinds of project!!

I had 5 years ago some Business with a startet from germany.. they convert shipping Containers into solar farms.. you just put them where is space, you unfold the system and connect the village or whatever usage you have.. they cost around 150 000 Euro per piece only.. but its a local solution..

Man I wonder how you get into business doing that. Sounds like a great gig

My question regarding solar is how long do the panels last, especially given the wind-blown sandy environment, and when the panels require replacing, what happens to the waste? There is a hell of a lot of heavy metals in solar panels. Who pays for the clean-up, or is it left to the poor African countries to deal with?

@Martha Tjarks where do you get theses figures, 80% at fifty years .?

@Isaac Groen the PV industry is so new, and panels last so long, that very few have needed it til now. There are finally an increasing number in need of recycling, and companies and systems are rising to the challenge. We should recycle every one, and can, by appropriate government action.

I lile the fact that you also highlight ethical issues, not only the engineering issues

You would have to have a Grid with Superconducting Transmission Wire for this to work or move manufacturing close to the Solar Grid in Africa.

In short, Solar Energy does have challenges, but it is doable if done on or near the cost lines. My state of Florida could be doing something similar. We have more sun than we know what to do with, and plenty of water.

I think that the electricity should be used at source to split water to make hydrogen. This could be compressed using the same power source. The hydrogen could be transported by tankers to all of Europe. I reckon this would be financially viable. Any thoughts?

I heard you get even less energy out of the hydrogen than you put in to getting out of water by electrolysis. You don't even break even.

We have recently learned how an autocrat thinks he can start a war and get away with it because his country are a key supplier of global energy. We would need significant storage and back-up plans to ensure similar autocrats could never contemplate doing such a thing.

@JP you've lost me dude. The Russian government i criticised for committing these atrocities are the same race as me.

@Dom Baker Here's the thing. You have two options: 1. Pay a lot for your energy and continue to think you are racially superior and can hypocritically lecture others. 2. Pay less for your energy and stop thinking you are racially superior and stop hypocritically lecturing others. Decision, decision...lol

@Syarif Hidayat yes, I agree with you.

I remembering hearing about the potential of a small area of the Sahara being able to theoretically supply the world's energy in the 1970s.The falling cost of photovoltaic panels seems to offer a ray of hope for developing countries faced with rising energy costs. Even if storing the energy is troublesome, desalination, water pumping and other processes could be carried out mainly during the day.

@Norman Clαtcher I noticed that the air falling through an elevator shaft before it is closed comes out cool at the bottom on a 60 story building in Las Vegas. If you hang pine trees in the shaft , the hydrophobic needles should draw water from the air.

Though with the falling cost of solar panels it actually makes less sense to make solar farms. A big advantage of photovoltaic compared to other energy sources is that they can very easily be scaled down. Instead of building the solar farm out you could use that to offer subsidies to people buying solar panels for their homes. That will make people feel better and secure and is actually a far more reliable system. Since those solar panels are all spread out you don't have a single point of failure that could bring it down. So instead of putting 100.000 panels in a solar farm why not put 4 panels on 25.000 houses? With local solar panels you actually want to avoid excess power as reintegrating it into the grid is pretty tricky so you actually don't want houses to be self-sustaining power wise. That means on sunny days they can have 99% of their own power and on cloudy days like 33%. However spread out over a huge area those numbers do add up.

Roughly 370*370km is enough to supply the hole World today...

@Arturo Eugster There is a better and easier way: Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector technology by CNIM - Concentrating solar power plant

It's food for thought, particularly when driving past a field of barely moving wind farms on a cloudy day...

Really nice video, very interesting concepts!

In my opinion there are two major problems: 1) Sand. I think the flying sand, esp at a storm will blind every panel in a short time, like milk glass. 2) After a short period lots of things would be stolen, cable, plastic, plates. A normal thing in Africa. For to sell or to use for whatever themselve.

Well done, excellent video. Thank you for discussing the importance of African countries benefiting from engineering and not being exploited. 💜

What are you even talking about? Their not being exploited at all. If European companies came in a built a solar farm for Europe, who is exactly being exploited here? Especially if they now have the option to buy power from these European companies as a cheaper rate than what other power suppliers in the area can produce. Legit everyone is better off including the environment as the solar panels do slightly cool off the surrounding area. So once again, even if it was European companies who went in, legally buy the land & then built power generation for themselves, who exactly is being exploited & how?

1 year later and this looks a lot more appealing.

This was really really interesting. I’ve never heard of concentrated solar, sounded like an awesome concept until you explained the pitfalls. This is one thing, regardless of the environmental benefits that I like about the switch to renewables, because it gives the opportunities for much more countries to have their own energy independence and not rely on energy that comes from other parts of the world just for basic power needs which have primarily been the driver of wars and conflict. The entire world shouldn’t have to crap itself because a 30 mile wide body of water in the Middle East is being fought over by the United States and whoever.

Water is the next war.

Ehbfunbcc Whjfhbhjxf On the topic of waste, uranium-235 decays into thorium during its fission, meaning it generates more fuel for other types of reactors. And, not all of the uranium gets "depleted", a rather low amount does, but it's too much for most active reactors. The good news on that, is that the remaining "spent" rods can be used in starting reactors and sustaining them until new full rods can be put in. And even after that, the depleted uranium is used in a lot of military things, like penetrators and armor. The total true waste produced in USA from the moment that we started research is extremely small, with a volume of only a football field size hole, roughly 2.5 meters deep.

CRUDE OIL PRICE IS VERY MUCH HIGH.IT SHOULD FALL TO 65$ TO 55$......

I saw a video on using metal as a fuel to generate electricity (eg iron burns without producing carbon dioxide), you can then use electricity to reduce the oxidised fuel back to metal again. Metal fuel can be used, then shipped back to the location of green electricity. Theoretically it should be infinitely recyclable.

how do you heat up the iron until it catches alight (without burning fossil fuel) ?

How do you stop sandstorms from scratching the panels up?

Are these problems more insoluble than the ones that were overcome in the Manhattan project or the Moon landings?

If only solar panels lasted for 50 years and we had enough precious metals this could be a good idea

@Karsten Schuhmann How / why would I delete your answer ?

@AAA Whatever, rear earth is used in the magnets of generators but not in solar cells.

@AAA Are you deleting my answer?

@Karsten Schuhmann If one were to search, you can find using rare earth minerals, and non rare earth minerals for solar panels

@AAA Solar panels do not really use precious metals. The semiconductor is silicon and the electric contacts are aluminum. Some of the most abundant materials of the crust of the earth.

I'm going to put it as simple as possible. For a solar panel to work out at its peak the conditions you want is: straight sunlight at almost 90 degree to the surface of the panel (90 degree exactly is the peak point but can cause surface burns on PVs and solar panels alike), low temperatures this is the most important factor for a solar panel to work efficiently. The reason that panels and PVs do well in Scandinavia and Germany is because the temperature is so beneficial that even if you get only a couple of hours of clean sunlight, with the right base you will more power than the equivalent in let's say Greece, where temperature are much higher and much more risky for the panels.

@Matteo Carrozza I agree 150b isn't all that much, but 1T is and that may be what the cost would need to be to go to 60% or 70%. We simply don't know yet. I used the term oil as a panacea for fossil fuels which would include natural gas (fracking being at the forefront of an American mind). Plenty of industry and societal needs revolve around natural gas everywhere, especially in Germany. I agree they are in a pickle and hopefully new and improved technologies will provide tenable solutions. I've enjoyed our exchange. Good luck to you in the future!

@Ryan Kuypers as a general point, I would just say that 1) 150bn of investment, spent over 20 years, really isn't that much for an economy the size of Germany. For instance, they are gonna spend something similar this year and next just to subsidize energy due to the rise in gas prices and the stand off with Russia. 2) I am not entirely sure they have caught all the low hanging fruits. The technology evolves all the time, for instance PV has only become competitive without subsidies in Germany a few years ago (wind earlier) 3) oil isn't going away doesn't mean much, or anything. Leaving aside the fact that I was talking about electricity, and only an insignificant share of electricity is produced by oil, but I get the broader point as eventually Germany will replace also oil in transport . The US produces oil, Germany not a drop, so generally being more self reliant is a good thing. Germany is in such a pickle because they have been so reliant on Russian gas, so there will be additional geopolitical reason to do that.

@Matteo Carrozza Yes, 44% is great, but getting to 60% or higher isn't as easy as it seems. Germany has spent roughly $150 billion to get to 44% and getting to 100% is estimated to cost $5 trillion. It's not a linear progression after the low hanging fruit is gone. As long as you're a proponent to doing what is beneficial without destroying an economy then I can get behind that logic. The bottom line is oil isn't going away anytime soon and there may not be enough raw materials on the planet to ever realize anything near 100% in renewables.

@Ryan Kuypers so what share of Germany's electricity is from renewables? Is 44% insignificant? My point was that it is not that difficult to go from 44% to 60%... Not everything needs to go to 100%, those countries were just an illustration to how you can easily get to majority renewable

@Matteo Carrozza Yes, because anyone can Google the figures and Denmark makes around 90% of their own electricity so you're selling them short. Denmark and Portugal are not significant when it comes to manufacturing base so my focus was on the potential of green energy replacing current societal demand in a major economy. Denmark has a population of less than 6 million, Portugal is barely over 10 million, and Germany is over 83 million. Using insignificant examples doesn't bolster your argument. It's akin to comparing healthcare dynamics in Sweden to America or when abortion proponents use statistically rare rape and incest cases to argue for a blanket policy. Of course you decided to pivot to exactly what I was stating. Storage is key (and more than a bit since the sun doesn't always shine and the wind doesn't always blow). I think nuclear is great, but although it's tremendously green from an overall environmental perspective all the Greta's of the green revolution don't agree.

As a Moroccan, I really hope for success of local electric production, it would be a gamechanger for the industry.

@FireFacts Europe is not a country

@William Stucke Toyota is Japanese. Car manufacturer he said, not car factory

In point of view, we must have a good relationship between 🇲🇦 Morocco and Algeria 🇩🇿 , and latest gas pipeline problems, maybe just a political way to press Europe, it's a big fake film between USA and Russia , against Europe

you guys have the largest solar plant in the world so their's some hope

@Simo Both Nigeria and Ghana manufacture cars, what are you talking about ?

having all this solar, wouldnt it be perfect to make hydrogen fuel? the electricity could be used to pump water from the ocean, desalt it and then create hydrogen. hydrogen could be transported via tankers to all over the world.

@William Owen the oil companies are the hydrogen companies, if it helps make bank they’ll do it lol that is what the energy market is. You think they locked to only oil? It’s just the most profitable atm

@William Owen Stupid comment. Several big oil companies are also pursuing hydrogen. It just hasn't been remotely viable until recently.

Oil companies fight a hydrogen economy every second of every day.

If Elon Musk ,Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates want they could help the entire world with energy.

isnt the energy gained from the PV wafers DC? so for the long distance transportation, why first invert it to AC and then back to DC (using expensive inverter/converters)... i mean why not directly transport it as DC. i was just curious, not an engineer :) thx

The Soviets had a liquid metal cooling system for one of their nuclear power plants and they allowed the liquid metal to solidify. It bricked the entire reactor.

7140 real engineers disliked this video for its inaccuracy 7140 real engineers that wouldn't get fired on the first day of their job for leaving out losses in their calculations

The Moltex molten salt nuclear reactor runs continuously while heating the same type of heat storing salt used in solar boilers. The heat is used to fill peaks in demand while the reactor runs continuously. Costs are cheaper than coal and you don’t need all the cabling of solar (any type) to connect the panels.

Molten salt nuclear especially the Moltex) is intrinsically safe. Temperature rise above normal reduces power output to zero well within acceptable limits. Temperature falling increases power from the reaction. It’s entirely self regulating. The coolant loop could be disconnected at full power and nothing bad will happen. The fuel is liquid so cannot suffer physical degradation or the internal pressure rise that stops solid nuclear fuel being fully used. The result is 99% fuel burn vs 4% burn in a PWR. This cuts the waste storage time by 1000x. The list of benefits is huge. The only reason it’s not been done before is the endemic engineering conservatism of the nuclear industry and regulators who move glacially slowly and cannot comprehend anything new.

Molten chloride salt is LESS corrosive than hot pressurised water. It’s also completely impervious to neutron radiation. This cracks water into hydrogen (which embrittles metals) and oxygen which corrodes metals.

@Drake Koefoed we don't know it's one of those known unknown of science. We know that these waste give of radiation which is a for of energy we can't use yet. Who knows we could get to the point where the waste becomes valuable. There's been talks about using it as batteries. But there's not enough resources available to push those type of research yet.

@Drake Koefoed the problematic waste needs to be stored for around 27 years. The waste which is stored for lets say 50000 years is nonproblematic, as long as you don inhale or eat it.

but what does it cost to store the waste 50k years? obviously this insane future cost is left out to make the numbers seem to work.

Interconnections are usually categorised by how much Voltage they transfer, not MW

Just need a separate array to power a massive power bank for nights and some F1 type energy recovery systems.

This (Sahara Solar Panels) is an issue (sand/politics etc) I wondered about over thirty years ago when Solar Panels were first starting to be produced en-mass. As for sending electricity, there are alternatives; but too many concept thieves to placate the Luddites.

You can convert electricity into liquefied hydrogen through the electrolysis of water, and then transfer it to Europe or any country and use it to run engines that generate electrical energy.

Note that you can make a 3D printer or replicator based on concentrated solar power that will turn the sand(silica) of the sahara dessert into more parabolic mirrors and "3D printers" / "formers". If you let it self replicate for 50 generations: 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1k 2k... you'll have trillions of parabolic mirriors all covering the sahara. You could prototype the parabolic mirriors made of ice on top of mountains or in a artic cave since parabolic ice mirrors require 100x less time/energy to self-replicate.

I remember watching a video on a brand new hydrogen paste that might be useful. I could see those massive solar facilities relevant directly powering countries instead being used to produce fuels as a method of storage that would be more efficient than batteries.

I don't think you even need to get terribly exotic with what form your hydrogen takes. Storing your excessive solar energy in the form of plain old hydrogen gas seems like it could be a concept.

putting glass around the solar panels could maybe help?

@Too Many Marys Expense can be relative. Is the high cost due to the heat required for the chemical reaction or the production costs of Ester? I don't see heat in the Sahara Desert being a problem; construct some solar furnaces nearby the panels and contain the production to one site. Esther and ionised-water could be an imported materials carried on the same shipping lanes which are exporting the paste. "Powerpaste is made by combining magnesium powder with hydrogen in a process conducted at 350 °C (662 °F) and five to six times atmospheric pressure to form magnesium hydride. An ester and a metal salt are then added to make the finished Powerpaste."

Look into hydrogen paste more. It will always be stupidly expensive.

Air is storable, compressing the air with the panels. transfer the energy via pipeline. then generate power with the air pressure. Rivers and streams using a water wheel will compress air. The wind will compress air.

Should revisit this with the planning of the £17bn UK-Morocco power cables - four 3,800km long cables!!