The Sahara Forest Project: Oasis, Or Mirage?

As populations continue to increase and developing nations modernize, it has become accepted by many that humanity's current consumption patterns will continue to put a considerable strain on the world's available resources. Many forecast the date when resources will disappear entirely. Others have postulated ideas on how to mitigate this potential reality from occurring. While no one idea has been determined as the single answer for our civilization's continual growth and preservation, development of recent technologies gives us hope that environmental disaster can be averted. One idea considered for assuaging our resource needs is the concept of the "sustainable development." The idea of a structure that houses the ecological needs of humans in a self-contained environment has been discussed for years. While structures such as bio domes have been ultimately deemed economically inefficient, a recent announcement of a new structure may dissipate critiques of the effectiveness of sustainable developments as a viable solution to sustaining our resource consumption.

Earlier this month, a team of entrepreneurial innovators, planners and architects unveiled The Sahara Forest Project, depicted left. It is a considerable plan to transform the Sahara desert, one of the hottest places in the world. The project is a sizable undertaking, aiming to create a fertile, self-sustaining ecosystem by utilizing technologies that will provide water, energy, and ultimately food in one of the world's most desolate places. A variety of blogs and news sources covered the announcement, including Inhabitat and Treehugger. The Guardian, a well-known print and digital newspaper in the UK also featured an article covering the announcement.

The article examines how this project looks to make this seemingly impossible feat a reality. By utilizing two core technological concepts, Concentrated Solar Power and the Seawater Greenhouse, green technology correspondent Alok Jha writes that "the Sahara Forest project would marry huge greenhouses with concentrated solar power (CSP), which uses mirrors to focus the sun's rays and generate heat and electricity. The installations would turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation...and without the need to dig wells for fresh water." Thus, the project would be entirely self sustainable, as captured sunlight would continually power greenhouses that yielded electricity, water, and ultimately, food.

Another aim of The Sahara Project would be to produce a surplus of energy to help power other areas in the world, including parts of continental Europe. Leonora Oppenheim, a correspondent for sustainability blog Treehugger effectively outlines how the project would accomplish this. She writes that by combining and implementing both Concentrated Solar Power and Seawater Greenhouse, as much as 85% of solar energy could be collected, in comparison to a 25% yield by a conventional solar thermal power plant. The implications for this are enormous, as it could position Africa as the world's energy producer in the not too distant future.

Interestingly, the idea to make Africa a central energy provider to the world has already been envisioned by world leaders, manifested in a plan called DESERTEC. Developed and put forth by the Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC), a group composed of European, Middle Eastern and African countries, DESERTEC is a plan attempting to provide Europe with at least 1/6th of its power needs by 2020. This looks to be a considerable undertaking, as the project will cost taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 30 years. Still, as represented by the image to the right, a comparatively very small amount of land housing Concentrated Solar Panels in North Africa could power not only the European Union (EU) and Middle Easterners and North Africans (MENA), but also the entire world.

While on paper projects such as The Sahara Forest Project and DESERTEC look to be feasible and significantly positive contributors to the world economy, many weaknesses are attributable to both. A primary concern for projects such as these are their projected construction costs. Determining who will finance a venture such as The Sahara Forest Project will be problematic given not only the current financial climate, but who will principally benefit as well. Though the generation of potable water, vegetation and water would largely benefit African nations, these countries are presently ill equipped to finance such a technologically sophisticated venture. Local governments are having a considerably hard time feeding their citizens, relying at times on foreign aid. Still, the idea that The Sahara Forest Project could serve as a continental power plant could potentially attract fiscal consideration from European countries. I think that this is especially the case if European governments enact sufficient policy measures to encourage the importation of energy from Africa. Thus, if the project were to be realized, the onus would most likely be on European representatives to pay for the project in the short term, allowing African countries to reap the initial rewards, while benefiting in the long term by having a significant annexed energy source.

Furthermore, even if construction costs were realized, determining what body would act as principal controller of the project would be problematic. Eleven countries border the Sahara desert or semi-incorporate it into their lands, and cooperation amongst countries in this region has proven to be inconsistent. Furthermore, if the project were to involve European investment and supply power to European homes and industry, the governments of these countries would certainly want a say in matters of the project. This is because not only of financial interest, but also in matters of national security as well. Essentially having an external power plant outside of a country leaves them vulnerable to terrorist attacks and events out of their control, including inclement weather and civil strife.

Another fundamental issue concerning this project is a conceptual one. The Sahara Forest Project is touted as a sustainable development aimed at creating and maintaining electricity, water, and flora and fauna for the world's citizens. However, a fundamental problem with it is that it is really substituting one ecosystem for another. Implementing such a development usurps the naturally existing desert ecosystem in which plants and organisms live. While the Sahara desert is a harsh landscape for humans, it is nevertheless a naturally occurring biome on Earth. Thus, the realization of a project such as this imposes an alien, man-made ecosystem on an entirely natural one deemed sub-optimal for human civilization.

Despite issues associated with The Sahara Forest Project, I feel that it is conceptually an extremely compelling idea. As stated in an address by one of the team's founders Michael Paton at the 4th Annual Future of Science Conference, The Sahara Project is "a metaphor for any desert that formerly supported vegetation and could do so again, given sufficient water." Thus, if not actually implemented in Africa, the existence of the technology represents more than a step in the right direction for the promotion of sustainability. I would advocate that a project such as this be tried in a locale deemed safer for economic investment and under the control of a single country. This would be a reasonable response to the financial and control issues concerned with the project. In addressing the issue of the project being potentially invasive on an existing ecological system, I feel that in order to ensure the viability of both the human race and the Earth, sustainable practices must be implemented. In this case, the reward is much higher than the sacrifice. While certain organisms may be able to survive presently in the Sahara, it is more imperative that projects such as these are enacted to be evidence to the world of what positive change is possible to help the Earth and its inhabitants as a whole.