The Sahara Forest Project: Providing Water, Food and Energy

                                                                                         

The Sahara Desert is the world’s largest hot desert. At 3.5 million square miles (9 million square kilometers) it is larger than Australia and almost as large as the continental United States. Thousands of years ago it featured lush vegetation and, but for the lack of water, could do so again. Now, it has become possible to reverse the desertification of this vast arid land area and turn it into biofriendly forest, if some enterprising men get their way.

The Sahara Forest Project is the brainchild of three men—inventor Charlie Paton, architect Michael Pawlyn and engineer Bill Watts. Together, they have come up with an ambitious proposal that aims to reverse deforestation and provide energy in the Sahara and other hot deserts worldwide. The idea is to combine two exciting and proven technologies—the Seawater Greenhouse and Concentrated Solar Power (CSP). Working together, these two technologies can achieve reforestation as well as provide much needed food crops, fresh water and electricity to surrounding areas.

The Seawater Greenhouse has already been put to use in the Arabian Gulf and the Canary Islands. Using the Sun’s heat to evaporate and distil seawater and at the same time cool and humidify the air, an ideal environment is created to grow crops that would not otherwise be possible to grow there. This technology is of great importance for agriculture, which accounts for some 70% of the world’s fresh water consumption. Further, having a fresh water supply in arid coastal regions will help relieve the plight of those who live there (an estimated one billion people do not have access to sufficient fresh water). These greenhouses can also be used to generate bio-fuels.

The second technology in the Sahara Forest Project, Concentrated Solar Power, uses mirrors on the ground that bounce sunlight to a boiler atop a tower. The concentrated heat from the sun turns water into superheated steam that drives turbines to generate electrical power. This technology was mentioned in an earlier Biofriendly article; it can provide solar power much more cheaply and efficiently than with photovoltaic solar cells. Concentrated Solar Plants, covering less than 1% of the world’s deserts, would meet the current electricity needs of the entire planet.

The two technologies combined are synergistic and provide an effective, biofriendly solution that alleviates chronic fresh water, food and energy shortages in arid coastal areas. Moreover, unlike current other methods of desalination and electricity generated from fossil fuels, they are truly sustainable, as long as sunshine and seawater are abundant.

Part of working towards achieving a greener and cleaner planet is to use available fuels more effectively. Biofriendly Corporation has taken this to heart and produced Green Plus®, a liquid fuel catalyst that provides a cleaner, more linear fuel burn in internal combustion engines, resulting in fewer harmful emissions, increased torque and better fuel economy.

For more information about Green Plus visit the Biofriendly website at www.biofriendly.com.

About the author:
Peter Verhoeff is a freelance writer who contributes articles on environmental issues for Biofriendly Corporation. More information about environmental issues can be found at http://www.biofriendly.com.


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