SmartEnergyViews

Speaking at the Euroscience Open Forum in Barcelona, Arnulf Jaeger-Walden of the European commission's Institute for Energy, said it would require the capture of just 0.3% of the light falling on the Sahara and Middle East deserts to meet all of Europe's energy needs.

The plan will require a lot of forward thinking and money. European countries are planning for the future.

Southern Mediterranean countries including Portugal and Spain have already invested heavily in solar energy and Algeria has begun work on a vast combined solar and natural gas plant which will begin producing energy in 2010. Algeria aims to export 6,000 megawatts of solar-generated power to Europe by 2020.

In the States, the oil man, T. Boone Pickens, has a plan for wind power.

The United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power.

Florida Power & Light has announced plans for three new solar energy centers, one of which "will provide 25 megawatts of photovoltaic solar capacity, making it the world’s largest photovoltaic solar facility".

The first project should begin in 2008. The other two projects will begin in 2009. Together, the three sites will prevent the release of nearly 3.5 million tons of greenhouses gases over the life of the projects, which is the equivalent of removing 25,000 cars from the road per year, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. FPL is the world's number one producer of solar energy and the nation's top producer of wind power.

Then, on a smaller scale, a couple living in The Villages, in Central Florida, installed 24 solar panels on the roof of their house. They now have monthly electric bills "as low as $3". State of Florida and federal tax incentives dropped the cost of this couples' solar installation nearly in half, from $45,000 to $23,000.