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DESERT 100 MEGAWATTS PER SQUARE KILOMETRE. HOW CAN WE MOVE IT TO THE UK ??

Solar panels are quite inefficient as the radiation shining on the earth surface is over 1 kW per square metre but we will be lucky at midday to manage to capture 100 Watts.  But yet this is a really large amount of energy if we had say a square kilometre of panels.  I calculate it to be 100 MWatts at peak.  Recently I was Chile in the Atacama desert and took attached photo thumbnail?appId=YMailNorrin&downloadWhen


Now there are power lines there but we only saw one block of solar panels during our 1000 km trip.   There is no vegetation for animals to eat and no water for trees so the land is just barren a useless waste of space but if used to collect energy a miraculous godsend.  Putting solar panels up in England is wasteful of land that can be used for agriculture and anyway we do not receive the full desert heat that the Sahara can supply.

What if UK were to purchase 10km by 10km or 100 square kilometres of desert which at peak gives 10 gigaWatts of power nearly a quarter of our power needs but how to transmit it is a problem that needs solving unless we do a deal with Gibraltar/Spain sort of import/export deal?.
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  • Maurice, your statement that  " Our democracies in the west aren't perfect as we still have many elites, inequalities and poverty within our 'democratic' countries. We have also suffered the 'blow back' consequences (but not necessarily learned the lessons of) trying to impose 'western democracy' on nations that may not be suited to our model of operating, and have violently rejected 'imposed imperialism, Westernism, and capitalism' that ignores embedded wider issues. "


    The wider issue problem is really that young people want to be useful and work to develop their own countries.  So what can be more annoying than being like Chile with world beating reserves of Copper and Lithium and now to learn that western companies are also about to steal their solar power whilst they remain out of work. 


    If you were in Santiago wouldn't you be out on the streets with your children trying to find out who in Chile is getting a kickback in the way of a bribe or favour of some kind???   Western companies want to maximize profits; so need to get planning permission and export licenses at minimum cost which may mean greasing someones hand!!  A NO BRAINER but you also need their military to protect the asset on your side don't you??


    SO who is to blame for the problem in Chile??  Not the people, they just need a job for their children, not the president as he has not done anything wrong, could the elites in the military/police be possibly implicated which is what the public seem to believe, with so many disappeared students?? 


    Engineers fully understand that we need globally, to develop desert solar energy sources although at a hugely uneconomical capital cost of over $1 per Watt which we developed nations should  pay to desert nations to get at the CO2 carbon free magnoflux energy in order to save the planet. 


    BUT how in Gods name can we get there without causing the desert nations unemployed to react in a negative manner??
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  • Maurice, your statement that  " Our democracies in the west aren't perfect as we still have many elites, inequalities and poverty within our 'democratic' countries. We have also suffered the 'blow back' consequences (but not necessarily learned the lessons of) trying to impose 'western democracy' on nations that may not be suited to our model of operating, and have violently rejected 'imposed imperialism, Westernism, and capitalism' that ignores embedded wider issues. "


    The wider issue problem is really that young people want to be useful and work to develop their own countries.  So what can be more annoying than being like Chile with world beating reserves of Copper and Lithium and now to learn that western companies are also about to steal their solar power whilst they remain out of work. 


    If you were in Santiago wouldn't you be out on the streets with your children trying to find out who in Chile is getting a kickback in the way of a bribe or favour of some kind???   Western companies want to maximize profits; so need to get planning permission and export licenses at minimum cost which may mean greasing someones hand!!  A NO BRAINER but you also need their military to protect the asset on your side don't you??


    SO who is to blame for the problem in Chile??  Not the people, they just need a job for their children, not the president as he has not done anything wrong, could the elites in the military/police be possibly implicated which is what the public seem to believe, with so many disappeared students?? 


    Engineers fully understand that we need globally, to develop desert solar energy sources although at a hugely uneconomical capital cost of over $1 per Watt which we developed nations should  pay to desert nations to get at the CO2 carbon free magnoflux energy in order to save the planet. 


    BUT how in Gods name can we get there without causing the desert nations unemployed to react in a negative manner??
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