Fancy the chance to win an all-expenses paid trip to attend Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week in the United Arab Emirates? Well, here’s how.

Masdar, the renewable energy company based in Abu Dhabi, has launched an international blogging contest to raise awareness of the critical issues of water security and energy. “This is your chance to share with the world your thoughts, or a call to action for how to address the water – energy nexus,” they explain. “And a winner will be selected to travel to Abu Dhabi this January to participate in the largest gathering on sustainability in the Middle East [The Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week].” To enter all you have to do is write and publish a 400-600 word blog on what you think individuals, businesses or world leaders can do to address water and energy challenges. Post the link to the Masdar website by the end of this month and then get your friends to vote for you!

How to enter:

1) Write a 400 – 600 word article addressing the following question: What steps can individuals, businesses or world leaders take to address the most pressing and often interrelated water and energy challenges? For example, in the Middle East, the current process to purify seawater to produce drinking water is hugely energy intensive, expensive and unsustainable. What policies or technologies could address this pressing issue? This is just one example of the relationship between energy and water. Be creative. Tell us what you think.

2) Publish your story on your blog and post a link on Masdar’s website. You can also email your story to press@masdar.ae. The deadline to receive entries is December 31, 2012.

3) Promote. Tell your readers, friends and network to vote for and share your story featured on the Masdar website: www.masdar.ae/engage. Voting ends January 3, 2013.

A judging panel will review each entry submitted. The winner will receive an all-expense paid trip to attend Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week, January 13 – 17 in the United Arab Emirates. The winner will join more than 30,000 people – including leading thinkers, policymakers and companies – focused on addressing the critical energy, climate and sustainability issues the world faces.

To learn more, and for a full list of terms and conditions, visit: www.masdar.ae/engage.

Here are some energy and water facts to get you thinking:

• 40% of the world’s population is expected to live in water scarce-regions by 2025.
• 27% of the urban population in the developing world does not have piped water in its house.
• Globally, we use 70% of our water sources for agriculture and irrigation, and only 10% on domestic uses.
• Total electricity consumption of the water and wastewater sectors will grow 33% in the next 20 years.
• 99.7% of all the water on earth is not available for human and animal consumption.
• 52% of total global water desalination occurs in the Middle East.

For more on Masdar see: 

Interview with Masdar’s Director of Sustainability – Nawal Al-Hosany

Masdar Looks To Make Good On Solar Power in Saudi Arabia

Masdar Unveils Plans for 100% Renewable Energy Micro-Grid

The post Calling All Green Bloggers – Masdar Competition Wants Your Ideas! appeared first on Green Prophet.

Initially developed for Middle East desert conditions by the Israeli engineer Luz, and resurrected (Luz Rises Again as BrightSource) as BrightSource, which has huge projects in the US now, this kind of solar is now comparatively more expensive than photovoltaic solar, for the first time.

This is due to the drop in the cost of refining polysilicon and the intense competition among PV solar panel manufacturers.

The company (‘torre’ is Spanish for tower, and ‘sol’ for sun) says it is optimistic in getting the funding for its ambitious solar project pipeline. “Despite the ongoing economic troubles facing much of the world”, says Torresol President Enrique Sendagorta, “we believe we can achieve our goals as foreign banks are becoming more interested in financing solar power projects because it is a winning investment”.

The first of the Desertec solar projects all use CSP, in Morocco, and in Algeria, and just today – in Tunisia.

But concentrating solar power – CSP – uses mirrors to reflect sun onto towers that hold a fluid that heats up in the sun to make steam to drive turbines.

That means that only this kind of (thermal) energy has the potential to supply solar that can be dialed up and down as needed, and to supply power into the evening hours, because you can add storage capacity to a thermal plant by storing the heat in a molten salt for use later. The first Masdar/SENER Torresol project in Switzerland Gemasolar can run 15 hours a day.

So, because energy storage is an increasingly vital aspect of renewable power, as we add more of it, the lifetime utility of a CSP plant is actually better, even with a lower cost initially to build a solar PV project.

(Related: Which Solar Technologies Will Have the Most Investment Appeal?)

“We are developing a pipeline of projects in Spain, the U.S., and in the Middle East North Africa region,” Sendagorta told the World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi. “The investment would range between $3.5 billion and $5 billion.”

Part of the funding is likely to come from the oil-rich and now very eco-friendly Abu Dhabi, which through its Masdar Group owns a 40% share (to SENER’s 60%) of Torresol.

Read more on solar energy in the Middle East:

Masdar Opens First Baseload Solar in Spain – Gemasolar
BrightSource Solar Plant to Make More Energy than Fossil Fuels
Masdar Visionary Tells the Untold Story 

The post Abu Dhabi’s Torresol $5 Billion Solar Plans Include US appeared first on Green Prophet.