Roudaire The first documented suggestion for flooding large parts of the Sahara desert was by French geographer
François Élie Roudaire whose proposal inspired the writer
Jules Verne's final book
Invasion of the Sea. Plans to use the Qattara Depression for the generation of electricity reportedly date back to 1912 from Berlin geographer
Albrecht Penck.
John Ball The subject was discussed in more detail in 1927 by
John Ball, English director of the
Survey of Egypt. He oversaw the mapping of the area in 1927; and also suggested using it to generate
hydroelectricity. Ball also made the first preliminary calculations on the achievable filling rate, inflow rate, electricity production and salinity.
1957 proposal In 1957 the American
Central Intelligence Agency proposed to President
Dwight Eisenhower that peace in the Middle East could be achieved by flooding the Qattara Depression. The resulting lagoon, according to the CIA, would have four benefits: • It would be spectacular and peaceful. • It would materially alter the climate in adjacent areas. • It would provide work during construction and living areas after completion. • It would get Egyptian president
Gamel Abdel Nasser's "mind on other matters" because "he need[ed] some way to get off the
Soviet hook."
Friedrich Bassler From 1964 onward Prof.
Friedrich Bassler led the international "Board of Advisers" which was responsible for planning and financing activities for the project. He also advised the Egyptian government on the matter from 1975 onward. He was appointed by the German
Federal Ministry of Economics in Bonn to make a preliminary feasibility study. Bassler was the driving force behind the Qattara Project for nearly a decade. Halfway through the 1970s a team of eight, mostly German, scientists and technicians was working on the planning of the first hydro-solar depression power station in the world. The first "Bassler study" of 1973 laid the basis for the Egyptian government to commission a study of its own. It decided in 1975 that Bassler and a group of companies known as "Joint Venture Qattara" should conduct a feasibility study of the project. The project concept was: Mediterranean water should be channeled through a canal or tunnel towards the Qattara Depression, which lies below sea level. This water would then fall into the depression through
penstocks for
electricity generation. The water would evaporate quickly because of the very dry and hot weather once in the depression. This would allow more water to enter the depression and would create a continuous source of electricity. A canal 60 meters deep would connect the Mediterranean with the depression's edge at this narrow isthmus. This canal would deliver water to the depression as well as being a shipping route towards the Qattara lake, with a harbor and fishing grounds in the depression. The depression was to be filled to a height of 60 m below sea level. It would take a total of 10 years to fill to that level. After that the incoming flow would balance out against the outgoing evaporation, and the lake level would stabilize. In the first phase of the project the Qattara 1 station was to generate 670 megawatts (MW). The second phase was to generate an additional 1,200 MW. A
pumped-storage hydroelectricity facility would increase the peak production capacity by another 4,000 MW, thus totaling about 5,800 MW. The main problem with the project was the cost and technical difficulty of diverting seawater to the depression. Calculations showed that digging a canal or tunnel would be too expensive.
Demining would be needed to remove some of the millions of
unexploded ordnance left from
World War II in Northern Egypt. Consequently, use of
nuclear explosives to excavate the canal was another proposal by Bassler. This plan called for the detonation in boreholes of 213 nuclear devices, each yielding 1.5
megatons (i.e. 100 times that of the
atomic bomb used against Hiroshima). This fit within the
Atoms for Peace program proposed by President
Dwight Eisenhower in 1953.
Evacuation plans cited numbers of at least 25,000 evacuees. The shock waves from the explosion might also affect the tectonically unstable
Red Sea Rift located just away from the blast site. Another danger was increased
coastal erosion, because sea currents could change in such a way that even very remote coastal areas would erode. Because of the concerns about using a nuclear solution, the Egyptian government turned down the plan, and the project's stakeholders gave up on the project.
Continued interest Since then, scientists and engineers still occasionally explore the viability of such a project, as a key to resolving economic, population, and ecological stresses in the area, but the project has yet to be undertaken. On April 11, 2023, Egypt announced a contract with EGIT Consulting to study the feasibility of the project. As of 2024, Saudi Arabia and UAE are exploring projects to mine
lithium for
electric vehicles from existing onshore salt pans as well as salt pans supplemented with Persian Gulf sea water. Although the added value of additional table salt on global markets is low, the
clean energy boom presents a unique lithium opportunity if a scheme such as Qattara Depression Project were to materialize. As of December 2024, no such project yet is being seriously considered. == See also ==