11/03/09 Copenhagen Conference Hears that North Africa Could Power Europe

A Climate Change conference in Copenhagen has been hearing that using solar power installations in the Sahara Desert (possibly together with wind turbines on the North Africa coastline) could enable Europe to easily hit it's target for 20% of power coming from renewable sources by 2020, and could go further still.
Dr Anthony Patt, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Austria told the conference that the reliability of the sunshine in the Sahara coupled with modern concentrated solar methods that can store power as heat for several hours, make the possibility more and more feasable.

Dr Patt also pointed out that advancements in the use of High Voltage DC transmission lines has reduced the potential cost of transmitting the electricity over long distances by as much as 75%.

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