Easy solar energy: Is the writing on the wall for fossil fuel?

JEDDAH: Investment in green technology has gone far beyond earth closets and recycled brown paper bags, admirable first steps though they were. When a major global industrial player commits to it to the extent that the corporate giant Siemens AG has, that alone is a convincing argument that the world is looking for cleaner ways of producing energy other than burning fossil fuels. Moreover, it is a very strong indication that the alternative power generation market is also commercially viable.

Siemens has formed a team with Munich Re, the German insurer, Deutsche Bank, utilities RWE and Eon to form a company to explore the technical and geopolitical challenges of building hectares of solar mirrors in the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East to prove concentrating solar power technology (CSP) on a large scale: the Desertec Project. The project is out to prove both the economic viability of solar power and the political and PR benefits that go with it.

A working paper published in December 2008 by the Center for Global Development concluded that the economics of green power from CSP made commercial sense.

In an exclusive interview with Arab News, Siemens