There are quite a few projects across the world that are trying to turn the desert in to farming space both because the remaining planet is struggling to find new land for agriculture and the number of mouths the world needs to feed is growing at a blurring rate. This has forced engineers and designers to turn to deserts to try and eek out anything that is possible. One of the theoretically simple solutions has always been to desalinate the water from the oceans and to make use of the newly available fresh water. But it is one thing to write that day and a whole different ballgame in execution.

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 try and turn deserts into lush patches of vegetation. The greenhouses work by using the solar farm to power seawater evaporators and then pump the damp, cool air through the greenhouse. This reduces the temperature by about 15C compared to that outside. At the other end of the greenhouse from the evaporators, the water vapor is condensed.

Some of this fresh water is used to water the crops, while the rest can be used for the essential task of cleaning the solar mirrors. The greenhouse produces more than five times the fresh water needed to water the plants inside so, in addition to producing water to clean the CSP mirrors, some of it can be released into the local environment and that would be a very sensible thing to do. I guess before thinking about if we can make Mars inhabitable or Venus human-friendly, I guess we must look at the vast stretches of land right here on earth that could use a facelift. Sahara Forest Project is a brave venture in that difficult direction and we wish nothing but the best for the ingenious men at the heart of it all.

Via Guardian