DESERTEC resources

This page provides information and links to leaflets, slide shows and other information resources about CSP and the DESERTEC ideas.

The DESERTEC concept in brief

This two-sided A4 leaflet summarises what CSP and the DESERTEC proposals are all about:

• MS Word (4.2 MB)
• PDF (884 KB)

CLEAN POWER FROM DESERTS: what governments can do

This four-sided A4 document provides some reasons why governments and the EU should do all that they can to facilitate the DESERTEC developments and it summarises what actions are needed to move things forward:

• MS Word (72 KB)
• PDF (56 KB)

CSP slide shows:

• "Clean power from deserts"

  • Download PPT file (17.2 MB).
  • Download PDF file (6.2 MB)

  Many of the slides in this slide show are included in case they are needed but would not normally be shown. With PowerPoint, each such 'reserve' slide can be 'hidden' by right-clicking on the thumbnail for the slide and choosing 'Hide Slide'. Any hidden slide can be shown during a talk by right-clicking on the screen and choosing 'Go/By Title/<the slide that you want to show>'.

• From TREC: Download PPT file (3.7 MB)

• "Concentrating solar power now", Dr Franz Trieb, Download PDF file (3.4 MB)
• "Clean power from deserts", Dr Gerhard Knies, presented at the Hay Festival, UK, 2007-05-24, Download PPT file (15.7 MB)

CSP plants on Google Earth

If you have Google Earth free software installed, click CSP plants around the world to see where CSP plants are being planned, being built, or are up and running in different parts of the world (with links back to relevant reports on our News page). This works best with the Firefox browser.

If you experience problems with this link (and Internet Explorer can cause problems), download the file and then click on the file (or double-click) to start up Google Earth and load the data.

To download the file with Firefox, right-click on the link, choose "Save link as", navigate to where you want the file saved, and click "Save".

To download the file with Internet Explorer, right-click on the link, choose "Save target as", navigate to where you want the file saved, change the last three letters of the filename to "kmz" (instead of "zip") and click "Save". If you cannot see those three letters at the end of the file name, open Windows Explorer, choose Tools/Folder Options/View, and uncheck the box labelled "Hide extensions for known file types".

The CSP plants are listed in the left panel under the headings 'Places', 'Temporary Places' and 'CSP plants' and marked with coloured icons on the earth itself. Double-click on any CSP plant listed in the left panel and Google Earth will fly you to it. Or just spin the earth and see where the icons are. Click on each icon for more information about that item, including links to relevant news items on our News page.

Please send corrections or new information about CSP plants to Gerry Wolff.

Talk given by Vinod Khosla at Solar Power 2006

Vinod Khosla, legendary venture capitalist, gave this interesting talk at Solar Power 2006 about the risks of climate change, the problems of coal-fired electricity generation, and the potential of solar power, especially CSP:

• The slides in a PDF file (3.7 MB).
• Video pictures of speakers at Solar Power 2006 (with sound), including:
  • Keynote address by Vinod Khosla (accompanied by the slide show, above).
  • Keynote address by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
  • Inverview with Vinod Khosla (scroll down to the bottom).
• The talk with slides and sound (switch on sound on your computer). This version of the talk works reasonably well but there are some technical glitches here and there. It may be better to look at the PDF slides (above) and watch the video.

Referring to CSP in comparison with coal-fired electricity generation, Vinod Khosla says: ... we are poised for breakaway growth—for explosive growth—not because we are cleaner but because we are cheaper. We happen to be cleaner incidentally.

There is also a very interesting interview with Vinod Khosla on ABC TV (Australia).