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Botswana Is Now Looking for Bids to Build 200 MW of CSP
- berkes 6y agoI spent part of my early youth in the North of Botswana. Coming from a densely populated part of Europe, one thing that stayed with me, is the incredible size of everything. Maybe for an Aussie or someone from rural USA it is not so special, but driving to the nearest town took a day. Our car had an extra large water and fuel tank (making the backseats somewhat uncomfortable for us kids). Over a 1000km of nothingness (that's from Antwerp to Kopenhagen). Just dry shrubs, an accidental hut, A lonely baobab-tree, one tiny fuel-station, and sand. Dusty, red, dry sand (it gets everywhere). I think Botswana has another "diamond" here: cheap, unpopulated, unusable land. With highly predictable, and heavy sunshine, makes for a perfect solar deliverer. Now, if only we could transport it as easy as oil or gas, and it could probably deliver large percentage of Africa's energy needs in coming decades. Because as far as I know, Botswana is still one of the least populated countries in the world (per km²). So it's not as if the local economy uses giant amounts of energy on itself.