New Technologies?
I find this series of images recently posted in the Guardian Environment section fascinating. Here we find that the ideas, technologies and prototypes that we are now hailing as answers to the current climate crisis, have already been with us for more than 150 years. I guess this is the result of society, choosing to follow the easiest route, or the path of least resistance and embrace the cost effectiveness of oil, with open arms. Once we made this choice path our cities, industries, machines, transport had to follow suit locking us into our current conundrum. I found that one image in particular stood out from the rest. The following from circa 1870 shows us Captain John Ericsson’s solar engine prototype, which used concave mirrors to gather the sun’s radiation and concentrate it at a point to heat water and run an engine.
I wonder how the world would look today, if it had chosen to follow John Erricsson’s path. The people at Desertec are already on that path, and have outlined how with this simple technology of Concentrated Solar Power, we would need to cover less than 1% of the planets desert area in order to meet our electricity energy demands.
That red square adds up to an area of 120,000 km² not the smallest power plant in the world, of course this red square is only to demonstrate the potential and the gross area necessary for CSP, the actual result would be 100′s of smaller power plants dotted around the globe. However in terms of areas, this red square for what it returns, begins to seem miniscule in comparison to the current 140,000 km2 mined in search for oil from Tar Sands in Canada, especially if we begin to count the impact on the ecosystems, ecologies and landscapes that are affected. Of course both of these operations are not stand alone entities but form part of our integrated energy networks, with all their associated infrastructures.
As in the last post sometimes the simple act of comparing two images can provide immediate clarity on an issue, so the question about the next two images is; Which path do you think we should take this time around?
Tar Sands Production © Edward Burtynsky
Concentrated Solar Power Plant
