Promoting an Asian version of `Desertec`

The challenges of a global financial and economic crisis in conjunction with the doomsday scenarios of climate change often seem to put insurmountable problems to society and politics. However, crises always work also as catalysts for new and innovative solutions. In Europe, the vision of inexhaustible clean energy seems suddenly to be within reach and the word "Desertec" fuels the dreams of industrialists and environmentalists alike. Can Northeast Asia live up to the challenge and implement a similar strategy?

The idea of Desertec is to generate clean and inexhaustible energy in the Sahara desert and bring it through a sophisticated energy grid not only to adjacent regions of the Mediterranean and North African or Maghreb region, but also to the industrial centers of Europe. The technology for this is already known and used on a small scale: mirrors bundle the sunlight in desert areas and create steam (like in a traditional coal-fueled steam electricity power station).

Energy can be saved at daytime and released in peak-times or night-time. It will be transported to Europe by a grid of 20 power lines. A feasibility study calculates that the establishment of a network of 50 solar energy power stations and a grid producing and transporting 100 gigawatts of energy until 2050 would cover 17 percent of European demand for electricity and would cost 400 billion euros ($592.3 million).



Solar power stations would use 2,500 square kilometers of desert ground and 3,500 square km for the power grid. This land use of 6,000 square km over the whole of the Maghreb compares in size to the artificial Nasser Lake and dam system in Assuan, Egypt, producing less than three gigawatts of energy, while the solar stations would produce 100 gigawatts. The energy is clean, inexhaustible and can be handled; in California the technology has been tested for 20 years, without greater problems, for example in terms of damage from natural disasters like sandstorms or typhoons, than for other forms of energy production.

The idea of using this technology on a large scale to find a broad answer to global problems, different from the much less significant small scale sources of renewable energy, came first up in discussions in the Club of Rome`s TREC program on clean energy.

A Desertec Foundation (www.desertec.org) was founded and on July 13 a memorandum of understanding on a consortium - Desertec Industrial Initiative - was signed by 12 companies from Europe, mainly from Germany, including heavyweights like Siemens, Deutsche Bank, ABB and Munich Re, to bring the concept to market. By the end of October they plan to set up a limited liability company responsible for the project.

The initiative found a tremendous interest in the business sections of newspapers as well as among environmental stakeholders. The congregation of industrial heavyweights, also including large German energy producers like RWE or EON showed the determination and the clear belief that the project can be realized.

Environmentalists are divided in their reaction: While the project would solve problems on a large scale and while side effects are at the moment not known (for example, new grid technology prevents electromagnetic radiation, efficiency losses from transmission also over long distance are reasonable etc.), some environmentalists argue that such a solution would counter the development of small-scale decentralized solutions (like solar cells on each house or small-scale windmills).

However, energy production in deserts is much more efficient (according to a study the use of a solar energy station in North Africa is 200 times more efficient than the production of energy plants in Europe with the same land use). The opposition against large-scale energy production seems to follow a rather romantic ideal of small-size, as it can be witnessed in Europe also with regards to ecological farming, for example, and not any concern founded in the technology per se.

The Desertec project still faces formidable hurdles, among them the need to raise substantial initial capital, the necessity for stable demand (like long-term guarantees to buy the generated electricity by European states), questions of security and stability in the Maghreb region etc. However, these obstacles are not insurmountable and, in fact, while not solving all problems of the European energy mix, the addition of a new energy option decreases the risks of being dependent on certain, particularly fossil sources of energy.

For Northeast Asia, the Desertec approach offers a fascinating model to be applied and applicable to the region: Here, the demand for a stable energy mix are even more pronounced, in particular in Korea and Japan; here, the geographical situation is similar - the region is adjacent to the Chinese-Mongolian desert regions; and the political situation, though not easy, is at least not more problematic than that in the MENA region.

<**2>

In fact, the idea of a similar project, here labeled "Gobitech" (alluding to the Gobi desert in Mongolia) could at the same time contribute to three important policy goals in Northeast Asia: it could contribute to tackling climate change by reducing dependency on fossil fuel; it could become a catalyst for policy cooperation and finally political integration by the creation of a Northeast Asian Energy Community; and finally it could increase energy security, by increasing energy choices and decreasing dependency on monopoly suppliers in Russia and the Middle East.

First of all, demand for electricity is high and growing, and - though nuclear energy plays a more important role than in Europe and in particular Germany, where it is phased out - it has its own unresolved problems of coping with nuclear waste, which is in Korea for example as contested than in Germany. So, nuclear energy will not resolve the problem of the Korean and Japanese lack of resources, besides that it is itself an exhaustible energy.

The large centers of economic growth in the region, Beijing (and maybe even Shanghai), Seoul, Busan, Osaka and Tokyo are an axis of ever-increasing energy demand. For Mongolia, the prospect to host such an energy project would offer new avenues for economic development. At the same time, the Northeast Asian countries in the last years saw a surge of consciousness regarding the environmental challenges of climate change and vow action on it. Green growth, however, needs clean technologies and the Gobitech project would offer exactly that: a green solution on a large scale, not ending, but fuelling further (green) growth.

Second, energy cooperation in Northeast Asia could become a nucleus and a catalyst for further policy cooperation, and in the end even political integration. The search for economic and political integration in Northeast Asia, long restricted by systemic conflict with China and later by ideological differences, in particular with regard to Japan`s role in World War II, could gain momentum again.

Currently, de facto integration of business, through cross-country investment, like Japanese and Korean investment in China, is already high. Institutional integration, like in a free trade area, is debated, but could not yet overcome political suspicion about Japan.

Currently, the political situation is more conducive than ever for Northeast Asian integration: China needs the continued engagement of Japan and Korea; Korea`s new administration is pragmatically dealing with international relations; and the end of the decade-long LDP dominance in Japan offers a unique of opportunity to finally overcome the irritations of Japan`s neighbors and a reassurance on its peaceful purposes.

For Mongolia, being part of such a project would offer the opportunity of integrating from the periphery to the mainstream of Northeast Asian development.

In this situation an energy community as a nucleus of a potential larger economic and political integration area, seems more feasible than ever. Already in the past energy cooperation has been proposed as a natural field of cooperation, given the complimentary interests of the Northeast Asian states. Today, with the prospects of huge payoffs from a clean source of energy, this is true more than ever.

In such a community there would also be a clear initial division of labor: Korea and Japan, maybe with international technology transfer from the Desertec project or with domestically developed technology, would be technological leaders and would provide the necessary capital. China and Mongolia would provide land, labor and, in particular in the case of China, political support and protection from possible threats like terrorism.

While this project is not a project of political over economic interest, the potential implications for the region should not be underestimated. Not only could enhanced cooperation between China, Japan and Korea improve the political environment for a solution regarding the Korean Peninsula, but also it could create the opportunity to include North Korea directly into this project. The energy grid could well pass through North Korea, touching and serving Pyongyang as well as the Gaeseong Industrial Complex and by that two of the potential growth poles of the impoverished country.

At the same time - and this distinguishes the Gobitech project from previous proposals of energy cooperation - a maritime alternative to the landline in the grid is technically feasible and would prevent the net from being hijacked for political purposes. As such, Gobitech would offer a unique opportunity of inclusion for North Korea, but it is no way dependent on this offer.

Last, but not least, the Gobitech project would offer an increased level of energy security for participating countries. Like in Europe, electricity provided by the project would not completely substitute, but rather complement (though, depending on the planning to an important extent) the existing sources of energy. By this, not the current oligopolistic structure of supply would be substituted by a new one (one new giant supplier country, Mongolia, with the opportunity to extort money due to its pivotal role), but rather a network of new supply sources, owned partly by companies in the countries of demand. Currently, Japan and Korea, but increasingly also China, try to develop national renewable energy sources. Gobitech would allow them to realize the environmental and strategic goals of these endeavors much more reliable and, in the end, cheaper.

Desertec fully realized that its solution is applicable worldwide. Currently, in Asia the development of a China-Australia network is under discussion. However, Northeast Asia is left out of these considerations and it is urgent for the governments and industries of Northeast Asian countries, China, Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, and maybe even North Korea, to take up the challenge of the use of this large inexhaustible source of energy, the sun, and not being left out in the cold of rising fossil fuel prices. A feasibility study and the formation of government-level and industry-level working parties and consortia should be the first steps to take on this challenge. Then, the vision of green growth, which in Korea has recently so much debated, could really become more than a buzzword: reality.



By Bernhard Seliger and Kim Gi-eun