While America's Fossil Fools seek to continue America's oil addiction, Abu Dhabi's Masdar Initiative is setting off on a serious path toward a 21st century, renewable energy future. Last month,Masdar and the Spanish firm Sener announced the formation of Torresol Energy, a joint venture to build large-scale concentrating solar plants (CSP) around the world.
The joint venture is starting off with three solar plants in Spain, valued at a 800 million Euros (or $1.2 billion). This venture is not just seeking to build solar plants, but to stake out a leading position in CSP technology to "achieve a sustainable leading position in this sector" even while "contributing to the protection of the environment for future generations." In other words, Masdar is seekingto have a controlling position across ""the whole value chain" of renewable energy, from research and development to manufacturing silicon for solar cells to the large-scale deployment of green technology."
One path that Torresol will be pursuing(aggressively) is the use of molten salts for a storage system to enable the plant to provide electricity during the night hours, even potentially for 365/24/7 electrical power generation.
Abu Dhabi (via Torresol) is throwing its hat quite seriously into a realm that offers real prospects for changing the game on energy production. And, as per the DeserTrec project, CSP has some real potential benefits other than 'simply' clean electricity. For example, what about the potential for 'waste' to be desalinated (now fresh) water in an arid deert area that could then support agriculture (perhaps biochar agriculture for creating rich soil while capturing carbon?).
Now, re the title and reflection:
- That Masdar & Abu Dhabi are investing $billions into renewable energy is a tremendous thing. Their efforts to start a transformation (we hope) to a non-polluting, renewable energy future are to be applauded.
- With each day that passes, America's worsening addiction to oil is weakening the nation, exporting dollars (at over $1 billion/day) for current consumption, and weakening America's ability to invest in a renewable energy future. What we might risk is that, through Torresol for example, we will find a positive in a renewable energy future but core elements of that will be own and operated by those who have been funded from our current fossil fuel addiction ... and we will be exporting $billions in the future paying for electricity being made from sun hitting our soil. A path toward a prosperous renewable energy future?
While Abu Dhabi is investing quite seriously, they are not alone. There are a range of CSP projects (some 5.5 gigawatts -- or about the equivalent of 5-10 coal plants) underway in the world. And, there are signs of growing confidencethat there might be multiple CSP / Concentrated Solar Thermal Power (CSTP) paths toward electricity very competetitive even with coal that does not face the problem of paying for all costs (including pollution).