DESERTEC – Clean Power from Deserts for a Sustainable World with 10 billion People

by Prof. Gerhard Knies (DESERTEC FOUNDATION Chairman of Board of Trustees and member of Board of Supervisors)

Thursday 3 Feb 2011, 16:30 → 17:30 Europe/Zurich

503/1-001 - Council Chamber (CERN)

Humankind is on the way to a world population of 10 billion, while earth’s carrying capacity is declining from 5 to 3 billion, caused by ecological deteriorations, mainly because of the use of fossil fuels. A rapid transition to clean and inexhaustible energies at a global scale could provide sufficient energy for continued development of our civilization and simultaneous drastic reduction of green house gas emissions. I will describe how this can be achieved by clean power from deserts: what are the required volumes, the required pace, the needed technologies, the needed political and financial efforts, at a global scale. I will address the role of the DESERTEC Foundation, of the DESERTEC Industrial Initiative and of the DESERTEC University Network for implementing the DESERTEC Concept.

Poster CERNColloquium03.02.2011.pdf

Slides Knies-CERN-DESERTEC5.pdf Knies-CERN-DESERTEC5.ppt