forbidding
deserts
harvesting
abundant
spacious
raw material
solar plants
the world’s current energy demand.
Blueprints
drawbacks
project is given the go ahead.
The world’s most forbidding deserts could be the best places on Earth for harvesting solar power — the most abundant and clean source of energy we have. Deserts are spacious, rather flat, rich in silicon — the raw material for the semiconductors from which solar cells are made — and never short of sunlight. In fact, the ten largest solar plants around the world are all located in deserts or dry regions. Researchers imagine it might be possible to transform the world’s largest desert, the Sahara, into a giant solar farm, capable of meeting four times the world’s current energy demand. Blueprints have been drawn up for projects in Tunisia and Morocco that would supply electricity for millions of households in Europe. However, there are quite a few drawbacks that have to be studied well before this project is given the go ahead.