Solar Energy

Solar thermal energy (STE) is a technology for harnessing solar energy for thermal energy (heat). High temperature collectors concentrate sunlight using mirrors or lenses and are generally used for electric power production.

Enormous quantities of energy fall as sunlight on the world’s hot deserts. STE is a proven technology for tapping in to it. STE is a relatively simple, mature and practical technology that can be brought into play immediately.

STE Systems can be installed in large numbers as 'farms' in deserts and other sunny areas. With economies of scale, concentrating solar power is likely to be very competitive on cost.

Every year, each square kilometre of desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil. Multiplying by the area of the deserts worldwide, this is several hundred times the entire current energy consumption of the world.

Using STE, less than 1% of the world's deserts could generate as much electricity as the world is now using. It has been calculated that 90% of the world's population lives within 2700 km of a desert and could be supplied with solar electricity from there.

The cost of collecting solar thermal energy equivalent to one barrel of oil is about $US65 currently but is likely to come down in the future.

The down side of solar energy is the phenomena of global warming. The change in the planet's energy balance due to global warming is small but so great is the flow of energy from the Sun that, over decades and centuries, it is expected to do great damage in the absence of mitigation.

Most carbon-free technologies for producing energy are driven by the Sun, either directly, or via the indirect means of wind, water and plants. Harvesting this energy is increasingly being recognized as an essential component of future global energy production. Capturing even a small fraction of the 165,000 TW that reaches the earth would significantly impact the overall energy balance.

The various technologies for producing solar energy are well known and do not form a part of this inventive concept. It is an objective of the current invention however, to use solar energy to desalinize ocean water and/or to pump the desalinized water into the hot deserts of the world for irrigation purposes.