By Richard Alleyne, Science Correspondent in Copenhagen
Europe's entire energy needs could be supplied by covering an area of the Sahara with solar panels a climate change conference has been told.
By harnessing the power of the sun in an area around the size of Ireland, Europe could easily meet its 2020 target of getting at least 20 per cent of its energy from renewable sources.
"It could supply Europe all the energy it needs," Dr Anthony Patt, of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, in Austria, told scientists at a climate change conference in Copenhagen.
"The sun is very strong there and it's very reliable."
Dr Patt told the conference that calculations show a £50 billion investment by governments over the next ten years would be enough to make Saharan thermal solar power an attractive and viable prospect for private investors.
The technology, which involves turning water to steam by focusing the sun's rays with mirrors, is also becoming cheaper and compares favourably with other forms of solar power, he said.
The cost of moving electricity long distances has come down by around three-quarters, he added.
He said only a fraction of the Sahara, probably the size of a small country, needed to be covered to extract enough energy to supply the whole of Europe.
The sun in the Sahara is twice as strong as it is in Spain and is a constant resource, rarely being blocked by clouds even in the winter. ...
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