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The area needed to meet the world’s current electricity needs–16,000 TWh/y–would be smaller than a 254 km x 254 km square section of the unused Sahara desert, theoretically. The demand of the EU states only could be met by a 110 x 110 km parcel. A single nation like Germany? 45 x 45 km, which is equal to less 0.03 percent of the suitable areas in North Africa.
This was the finding of the Technical University of Braunschweig’s Nadine May in 2005, when solar cells were much less efficient than today’s.
By Sid Douglas