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| Image credit: Middle East Monitor |
The phrase of middle east firstly reminds us of petroleum and then the boundless deserts on which there are some of the best living destinations located.
Today the Middle East is one of the favourite vacation destinations globally and the oil bank for populous countries like India.
The deserts receive maximum sunlight and can act as a powerhouse of solar energy in future. Today the non-renewable energy sources are on the verge of extinction.
So to overcome it, the world needs to meet their energy need from renewable energy sources and the most favourable is solar. Also, the middle east also needs to find the alternative of petroleum as their income source.
So basically, as stated above, solar energy is the best alternative and the hot deserts can be turned into the power generators.
Solar farms need large areas and Sahara desert, the largest desert can meet the power needs of countries in it as well as most of it's surrounding countries.
It's theoretically possible but practically it's next to impossible due to the location of the Sahara desert.
The countries which house Sahara are namely Sudan, Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, etc are the home of unstable governments, very low HRD index as well as infrastructure, etc.
So the local factors are the biggest obstacles. However, the middle east has the Arabian desert and sees a huge opportunity in this.
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| Image credit: Indiafuntrip |
It houses the Arabian Desert spread over 9 countries namely UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Oman, Bahrain, Jordan & Iran. And almost all of them are politically stable and rapidly developing.
They are presently the exporters of petroleum and meet the needs of a large number of countries which is the basic and sometimes the only source of income.
They also know that it's a non-renewable energy source and will over one day which will invite economic crisis
But they are future thinkers, as they are almost on the fast track to generate and export energy from solar.
In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in building up solar farms in the Middle East and the research work is also going on to increase the efficiency of the panels and transmission.
And other than solar as the energy source, there's also another mode to generate and export energy. It's a very simple concept but has a very high potential in it.
Electrolysis of a water molecule separates it into two part namely hydrogen and oxygen atoms. However, during this separation, a huge amount of energy is stored in hydrogen.
It can be exported easily as there is a very well developed shipping infrastructure and it requires none additional changes to be made in it.
As those countries presently export petroleum and will export the power in the form of hydrogen through shipping and solar electricity through cables.
Regions both Northern Africa as well as the Middle East, both have an endless desert that features a vast potential to produce solar energy. But the difference is, how they grab the opportunity.
Other than those countries, many countries have large opportunities but it's more important that, how they take it. Here's the map showing opportunities:
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| Image credit: Research Gate |
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