The system would distribute solar, geothermal, wind and wave energy throughout the region, using an energy distribution system funded by a hemispheric carbon levy.
The pan-Asian system is modelled on DESRTEC’s European equivalent, DESERTEC Industrial Initiative, a $775 billion ($US700 billion) plan to develop concentrating solar power plants in North Africa to partially power Europe via high-capacity power lines between the two continents.
Under the pan-Asian model, Australia would provide solar energy, Mongolia would provide wind power, and China would provide hydro power.
DESERTEC says that the plan would lower regional energy costs through increased cross border trade, provide better investment price signals through market aggregation, afford greater energy security, increase economic growth rates, and increase geopolitical security through deepened multilateralism.
DESERTEC says that its plan would also solve issues surrounding the funding required to involve developing nations in a global climate change framework.
“If developed and developing countries in Asia join together to fund a flexible, economically rational, pan-hemispheric, common-carrier energy infrastructure, it could offer a regional, market based solution to climate change,” the company stated.
DESERTEC-Asia lays out its plan in A Pan-Asian Energy Infrastructure.
DESERTEC-Asia is part of an international foundation dedicated to implementing the DESERTEC concept which involves harnessing the vast renewable energy potential of the global desert belt by extracting large scale solar thermal energy and dispersing it around the world.
