Energy and environment: "Sahara Solar Breeder", clean Algerian-Japanese solution
Fruit of the high-quality
Algerian-Japanese cooperation, the "Sahara Solar Breeder" programme,
which design phase was completed in 2015, after five years of work, has been
culminated by the development an ingenious and clean solution based on the
treatment of Sahara sand.
The SSB is the "most
ambitious among all the international programmes, since it can provide 50% of
energy needed by the planet," stressed Pr. Amine Boudghene Stambouli, the
scientific and technical manager of this cooperation programme.
The "SSB responds better to the planet's needs by
integrating the production of solar panels and the localisation of electric
plants in areas where energy is much available," explains this teacher and
researcher at Mohamed Boudiaf University of Sciences and Technology in Oran
(USTO-MB).
Over 300 conferences and thirty publications in international
scientific journals have highlighted the SSB's significant interest, which
comes in a global context characterized by high energy consumption and
increased emissions of greenhouse gases. This issue has been broached during
the World Conference on Climate Change (COP21) held from 30 November to 11
December in Paris.
"The international community is facing the need to
develop renewable energies as alternative sources to fossil, non-polluting and
inexhaustible energies and which will gradually become the solution to the
issues of environment and sustainable development," said Pr. Stambouli.
So, the Algerian initiative includes the creation of a National
Fund for Renewable Energies (2010) and the working out of National Programme
for Development of Renewable Energies with the aim of reaching the country's
energy sacurity by 2030, while preserving the environment since 40% of electric
production is expected to be from solar and wind origin.
The SSB, which fits perfectly into the national goals, confirmed
the feasibility of a large-scale project on electric production in the Sahara
desert, with a view to conveying it to the north of the country,
superconducting cables.
The target is to use the world's largest desert, the
Sahara, as a source of energy.
In fact, deserts receive sunshine over large areas and their
sand contains much silica, the raw material for the manufacturing of silicon,
part of the solar panels.
The project is therefore based on
building silicon plans and solar plants to produce energy, which will be used
to manufacturing more silicon and then creating more plants in a process called
"breeding."
In the future, these plants could
supply other countries with energy, through superconducting cables.
The SSB was approved in August
2010 by the signing of an agreement between the Ministry of Higher Education
and Scientific Research, USTO-MB, and two Japanese agencies dedicated to
international cooperation (JICA) and science and technology (JSTA).
