Guardian solar power story

Posted by andrew on Thursday, December 7th, 2006

I keep expecting someone on another blog to mention this story which appeared in the Guardian last week… but so far I have yet to see a line written about it! Which is odd given how revolutionary it could potentially be… unless i’m missing something obvious?
Check it out for yourself by clicking here.
When the story ran in the paper it was supported by some amazing graphics which, alas, have not made it on to the website, showing the “footprint” of desert that would need to be covered in reflecting mirrors to supply relative amounts of energy. What it amounted to was that covering just 0.5% of the world’s hot deserts in solar technology could supply all the energy that the world currently needs. The knock on effect for the local communities would be that the same technology could provide desalinated water for local communities and air conditioning for nearby cities. Shady areas created by the reflectors can then use the desalinated water to grow crops.

Am I missing something here? Is this an early April Fool’s joke?! If not… what’s stopping us?

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