Sahara Sucks!

Algeria plans solar power cable to Germany "ALGIERS, Nov 14 (Reuters) - An Algerian company is planning to build a power cable to Germany to export solar-generated electricity from the Sahara, a state-owned newspaper reported on Wednesday."
CNN;
# A 92 mile by 92 mile area of desert filled with CSP plants could power the U.S
# Around 0.3% of Sahara could power Europe, Middle East and North Africa
# CSP can combat water shortages, avoid future humanitarian disasters
# U.S. solar industry threatened by upcoming Energy Bill

After oil and gas, Sahara sunshine?
"ALGIERS, Algeria --It's a vision that has long enticed energy planners: solar panels stretching out over vast swaths of the Sahara desert, soaking up sun to generate clean, green power.

Now Algeria, aware that its oil and gas riches will one day run dry, is gearing up to tap its sunshine on an industrial scale for itself and even Europe.

Work on its first plant began late last month at Hassi R'mel, 260 miles south of Algiers, the capital. The plant will be a hybrid, using both sun and natural gas to generate 150 megawatts. Of that, 25 megawatts will come from giant parabolic mirrors stretching over nearly 2 million square feet -- roughly 45 football fields."

In the Sahara desert, with less cloud cover and a better solar angle, one can obtain closer to 83 W/m². The unpopulated area of the Sahara desert is over 9 million km², which if covered with solar panels would provide 750 terawatts total. The Earth's current energy consumption is around 13.5 terawatts at any given moment (including oil, gas, coal, nuclear, and hydroelectric power).
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Vilken skit! Det är mycket mer macho med kärnkraft, kol och olja, vem vill åka omkring i en bögig el-bil anyway? Och ska nu en massa beduiner ta över världen, såna som dom inte ens släpper in i EU? Nä, fy fan!

Jinge SvD

Peak Oil is Here

PARIS (ResourceInvestor.com) -- Peak oil is not the result of geological constraints though of course they play a part. It is not the absence of hydrocarbons on the planet, we still have loads. Peak oil is not the failure of Middle Eastern countries to pump lots of oil. Peak oil is also not the failure of individual consumers like you and me. Peak oil is the failure of the modern economic system we know as “free markets” or “neo-liberalism.”
Resource Investor

"After the CEO of Total (the French oil major) last week, two more CEOs of an oil major came out this Thursday to give stark warnings that mean that peak oil is happening right now. In addition, the chief economist of the International Energy Agency (the IEA), one of the main cheerleaders of the "there's more than enough oil" camp until now, is giving an extraordinarily pessimistic interview in the Financial Times, following the recent publication of their latest World Energy Outlook. "

"Where is the oil going to come from?" This is the CEO of the third biggest oil major in the USA, admitting that we no longer know where we can get access to oil. And he's repeating exactly what Christophe de Margerie, the boss of energy giant Total said a few days before: that IEA's projections, that everybody uses, are completely absurd"
Energy Bulletin

US military is completely addicted to oil. Unsurprisingly, its oil consumption for aircraft, ships, ground vehicles and facilities makes the Pentagon the single largest oil consumer in the world. By the way, according to the 2006 CIA World Factbook rankings there are only 35 countries (out of 210) in the world that consume more oil per day than the Pentagon. Energy Bulletin

Energy Statistics > Oil > Consumption (most recent) by country
Energy Statistics > Oil imports > Net (most recent) by country
Energy Statistics > Oil imports > Net (per capita) (most recent) by country

"In an economic forecast released today, the European Union (EU)' s executive arm revised down its projections for the economic growth in both the EU and the euro zone in the next two years, citing the recent turbulence on the financial market, triggered by the sub-prime mortgage crisis in the United States this summer, and rising oil prices, which were approaching 100 U.S. dollars per barrel, a level ever unimaginable."