GreenGo, a Danish developer, has unveiled plans for the Megaton Moon project in Mauritania. It will purportedly feature 60 GW of visible-from-space wind-solar capacity and 30 GW of green hydrogen capacity.
NOVEMBER 30, 2023 PILAR SÁNCHEZ MOLINA
Danish developer plans massive renewables-storage-hydrogen project in Mauritania – pv magazine International (pv-magazine.com)
Denmark's GreenGo has launched the Megaton Moon project in Mauritania, a 60 GW solar-wind power installation combined with 35 GW of green hydrogen production. The developer submitted a development application to the Mauritanian Ministry of Petroleum, Energy and Mines this week.
The Megaton Moon will be built in several stages, with the first pilot phase being expected to be finalized in 2028 and the last phase in the 2033-35 period.
In addition, more than 70 million tons of desalinated water will be generated per year, which would triple what is consumed at the Megaton facility itself for the production of green fuel.
The project will also use more than 10 TWh of surplus energy to facilitate the development of a large-scale local agricultural industry in the desert, as well as a local supply chain, said GreenGo.
“Developing a project of this magnitude requires close collaboration with the supply chain and purchasing partners,” said GreenGo CEO Anders Heine Jensen. “The size of the project will attract local production of photovoltaic panels, wind turbine blades and electrolysis components, for which we are negotiating memorandums of agreement with the manufacturers.”
The project will be financed through a GreenGo Energy partnership, with unspecified top-tier investors in the field of green energy.
“Our unique business model is based on partnerships around the development, construction and financing of large project portfolios, which fit the needs and investment profiles of our clients,” said Jensen.
The numbers on this project are surprising: 60 GW of solar and wind production and a completion date of the first phase not for four years, in addition to the other surprising numbers in the article.
Elon musk has significant doubts about the utility of hydrogen for many reasons, the first being that it’s a losing proposition when you analyze how much energy can be stored relative to how much is consumed in creating the hydrogen.
That in itself disqualifies hydrogen as a viable energy storage medium in the view of Elon Musk. he doesn’t bother discussing the more vexing problem that hydrogen poses as a storage medium for energy.
Hydrogen, being the smallest atom known in the universe, having one proton, one neutron and one electron, is difficult to store as the most minute hole in the container will leak.
In addition, hydrogen Is a very low energy density relative to other fuels like gasoline or methane.
Methanol is a far better molecule for storing energy as it has a relatively high energy density per gallon, and existing pipelines can be used to transport and store it.
Every citizen of the world needs to be very suspicious whenever someone proposes using hydrogen as an energy storage material. It doesn’t make any sense and, in time, all of the fraudsters promoting hydrogen will be exposed, but in the meantime, they will enrich themselves at great cost to society.