Off the Road, Out of Line?

All terrain vehicles, the four-wheeled stallions of off-road riders, are again sparking arguments that rumble even louder than the wale coming from their tailpipes. As a Sunday New York Times feature reported, the rise in popularity of ATV use throughout the country continues to cause headaches for public land managers and public land users alike. As more and more ATV riders are turning their wheels onto trails and more and more land is listed as unaccessible to ATV use, the showdown between the two groups looms larger. It's a standoff Outside reported on five years ago in a feature on the loud luxury of a privatized four-wheel-drive preserve. As the federal government tries to create a compromised road map for ATV users on public land, don't be surprised to hear more dust getting kicked up.
--Jason Kerkmans

Skating on Bones

Before people skied or biked, they skated on animal bones. And according to the January 2008 issue of Biological Journal of the Linnean Society of London, they probably did so first in Southern Finland, around 3000 BC.

The number of lakes within 100 square km here is the highest in the world. Cold weather and all those lakes make ideal conditions for pond hockey, but the Scandinavians weren't skating for play. They carved up the ice to get around quickly with less energy, the scientists hypothesized.

To test their theory, they had people tie on bones and skate around.  Tests revealed people saved 10 percent more energy when skating instead of walking.  Which would leave just enough juice for the Scandinavians to invent their second favorite on-ice pastime: Checking.

Volz Freed, Now in Hiding

American Eric Volz was set free from a Nicaraguan prison hospital Friday afternoon, closing a chapter in the international saga—but not entirely ending the drama—that began when he was convicted of murdering his Nicaraguan ex-girlfriend in February.

After his release, Volz immediately left the country and went into hiding due to reported threats against him, according to Volz family spokesperson Melissa Campbell. His mother, Maggie Anthony—who flew to Nicaragua after her son was absolved on Monday—arrived home safely in Nashville on Friday. It was not announced whether Volz would be traveling to the U.S. to meet his family.

In the same decision that cleared Volz and overturned his 30-year prison sentence, a Nicaraguan appellate court upheld the conviction of a Julio Martin Chamorro for the murder of Doris Jiménez, who was found strangled to death in the clothing store she owned. The decision inflamed many Nicaraguans, who accused judges of preferential treatment for the "gringo" and of taking bribes for his release. Prosecutors have said they will appeal the decision, but it is not clear where the case currently stands.

—Ryan Krogh

Eric Volz Freed

Eric Volz, the American who was being held in a Nicaraguan prison despite the fact his criminal sentence was overturned on Monday by an appellate court, was freed by a judge this afternoon.

The family has received word that Eric was just released from the prison hospital, but is waiting to give full confirmation until Eric and his mother Maggie Anthony are safely out of Nicaragua.

Yesterday, after meeting with Eric in prison, Maggie spoke to Outside about Eric's condition and gave a chronology of her attempts to get him released. Listen to the full interview here.

More to come...

Q&A: Eric Volz's Mother Speaks

Maggie Anthony, the mother of American Eric Volz, called from Nicaragua on Thursday after meeting with her son in prison to give Outside an update on Eric’s condition, and her efforts to get him released from prison. Listen to the complete podcast interview here.

Volz, whose story was detailed in Outside’s June issue, was absolved of murder charges on Monday, but still remains in Nicaraguan custody amidst an ongoing saga. Maggie told Outside that she hopes the Nicaraguan government will abide by court orders and release her son.

“It’s a really frightening situation because we just don’t know what’s going on,” Anthony said. “Nothing makes sense. Everything that is happening is totally illegal—everything. The only thing I know is that Eric has been declared innocent, and he should be free. Everything else feels like it’s being made up as they go.”

In February Volz was convicted of murder in the death of Doris Jiménez, his onetime girlfriend. This past week, his murder conviction was overturned by a Nicaraguan appellate court, but the judge who declared Volz guilty in his original trial has failed on numerous occasions to sign his release papers. Now Volz’s case appears to be headed to the Nicaraguan Supreme Court, and prosecutors have said they will suspend his release orders until that case is decided—the Friends of Eric Volz web site is now calling him a political prisoner. 

“It’s so hard to imagine that a judge can act in this manner,” Anthony said, speaking about Judge Ivette Toruño’s continued excuses for refusing to sign her son’s realse orders, including a flat tire, an incorrectly numbered—and stapled—case file, and missing documents. “The thing that is even more amazing is that it works,” she said. 

As of Friday morning, Volz’s lawyers were frantically trying to get him released before the Nicaraguan government closes for the holidays. It appears, however, that Eric will be spending Christmas in Nicaraguan custody.  Volz is currently being held in a prison hospital, and may have to wait for the government to reopen after the first of the year if he is not released today. Anthony said that the prospect of her son being transferred back to the main ward of the prison has her worried most.

“Our fear is that Eric will disappear,” she said. “It’s so dangerous right now, it’s so inflamed. If they were to send him back to the prison, I don’t think I would ever see him again."

Updates to come…

The "Evelest" Tribute

As the Times Square ball drops during the last seconds of 2007, Australian Freestyle Motocross rider Robbie "Maddo" Maddison will be on his bike looking up a ramp that he hopes will help send him 300 feet across the Las Vegas sky in front of the Rio Hotel & Casino. If successful, the Aussie will break American Trigger Gumm's two and a half year old motorcycle long distance jump record of 277.5 feet. And if that isn't enough to make you smile with childhood memories of the late Evel Knievel, then wait three hours because at the stroke of midnight Pacific Time, the off-road, rally, drift and stunt car driver Rhys Millen (yep, that was him behind the wheel of the General Lee doing some exceptional driving in the exceptionally bad "Dukes of Hazzard" remake) will attempt to perform a back flip in his off-road racing truck. Guinness World Records representatives will be on hand for the Red Bull Experiments, which will also air live on ESPN along with a music and video tribute to Knievel, who must be smiling.

Want to see how far a jump of 300 feet is on a motorcycle? Watch this video of Gumm's record jump, then imagine 22.5 feet added to it...

--Jason Kerkmans

Volz Still In Nicaraguan Custody

The soap opera that is the case of Eric Volz, who was absolved on Monday by an appellate court in the murder conviction of his ex-girlfriend, continues to unfold like a Nicaraguan telenovela. 

Volz remains in Nicaraguan custody despite a ruling that called for his immediate release, and the judge who declared him guilty is now blocking his release from police custody, risking potential contempt charges. 

Before he can be freed from Nicaraguan custody, Volz needs Judge Ivette Toruño, who sentenced him to 30 years in prison for the murder of Doris Jiménez—his ex-girlfriend—to sign his release orders. On Monday, Judge Toruño left her office at 1:30 p.m. and never returned, missing an appointment to sign the release papers. On Tuesday, Judge Toruño missed another appointment because of a flat tire. She then claimed that she sent the release orders back to the appellate court in Granada because the pages were numbered incorrectly, according to Melissa Campbell, a Volz family spokesperson. Volz’s lawyer, Fabbrith Gomez, said that the appellate court never received the papers. He accused court officials of illegally detaining Volz while they attempt to mount an appeal to the Supreme Court.

Wednesday saw much the same drama. Judge Toruño failed again to attend an appointment regarding Volz, this time in front of a judge overseeing a habeas corpus petition—an order demanding an explanation as to why Volz is still being held—filed by Gomez. If she wasn't already, this missed appointment will likely place Toruño in contempt of court, although it is unclear whether a Nicaraguan court would seek charges.

The United States embassy in Nicaragua released a statement Wednesday, saying that they expect the Nicaraguan government to release Volz “as soon as possible” and “to respect internacional conventions regarding access for the detained…while the Granada Appeals court decision is being implemented.”

Maggie Anthony, Volz’s mother, arrived in Nicaragua Wednesday to see her son and fight for his release. After attempting to speak with someone at the Supreme Court of Nicaragua, to no avail, she left for the city of Granada, a horde of local and international media in tow, to meet with Gomez. There is no word yet on whether she will be allowed to visit her son, who is currently being held in a police hospital, suffering from kidney stones.

Updates to come as the story continues to unfold…

—Ryan Krogh 

Snow Cave Survivors Rescued

Three days after heading out to find a Christmas tree and getting lost, a father and his three children were rescued today from a Northern California forest, the LA Times reported. Though the weather was benign when the family headed towards Lassen National Forest, a winter storm swept in and dumped up to six feet of snow in the area. Lost and cold, the family stayed put and built a snow cave to keep warm.

How do you build a snow cave and what do you need?  Check out our Gear Guy's answer.  Or, if you want to be fancy, pick up our January 2008 issue to read up on the challenges of building an igloo, and places you can go to learn the basics.   

The family followed one of the key rules of survival: if you get lost in bad conditions and people will report you missing, stay put and wait for rescue. For more stories of survival done right, check out our November issue.

Congress Passes Bill, 35 MPG By 2020

After being approved in the Senate last week, the House of Representatives approved final passage today of a major energy bill that sets higher vehicle fuel economy standards for the first time in three decades. The bill, which passed on a vote of 314 to 100, mandates an increase of 35 miles per gallon by 2020. It also establishes energy efficiency standards for appliances, the federal government and commercial buildings.  In a nod to renewable energy, the bill requires a sixfold increase in ethanol use to 36 billion gallons a year by 2022. Stripped from the measure, however, were a controversial $21 billion tax package that would have cut tax breaks to major oil companies and funded alternative sources like wind and solar power, as well as a requirement that utilities produce a growing share of electricity from renewable energy. House Democrats called the bill "groundbreaking" despite the loss of those provisions, and President Bush has indicated that he will sign the bill tomorrow.
--Damon Tabor

Volz Saga Continues

Eric Volz remains in a Nicaraguan prison despite a court ruling that called for his immediate release, and friends and family are waiting anxiously for his papers to be processed amid reports that local media are calling for citizen’s to take justice into their own hands. 

Volz’s lawyer, Fabbrith Gomez, is currently stationed at the courthouse in Managua, waiting for Judge Ivette Toruño—who declared Volz guilty of murdering his one-time girlfriend, Doris Jiménez—to arrive and sign his release papers, according to Melissa Campbell, a Volz family spokesperson. Toruño failed to sign Volz’s release papers on Monday. 

Volz was found guilty in February of killing his ex-girlfriend in Nicaragua despite numerous witnesses testifying he was in another city at the time of the murder. An appeals court overturned his conviction on Monday.

Volz’s mother, Maggie Anthony, appeared on the Today Show with Meredith Vieira Tuesday morning, pleading for the Nicaraguan government to honor its court’s decision to free her son. A press conference by Gomez is scheduled for noon in Managua. 

More to come...

—Ryan Krogh

Click here to read Tony D’Souza’s exclusive story about the murder of Doris Jiménez and the trial of Eric Volz, which appeared in Outside’s June issue.

Volz Still Waiting on Release from Prison

Eric Volz, the American real-estate broker and magazine publisher who was found guilty in February of killing his ex-girlfriend in Nicaragua—and who had his conviction overturned Monday by an appeals court—remains in Nicaraguan custody, according to Melissa Campbell, a Volz family spokesperson.   

Monday’s 2-1 ruling by a Nicaraguan appellate court called for Volz’s immediate release, but Judge Ivette Toruño, who presided over Volz’s first trial and declared him guilty, failed to make her 2:00 p.m. appointment to sign his release papers, according to Campbell. The family spokesperson added he has been transferred back to the main ward of the prison from the prison hospital, where he has been recovering from intestinal infections more than a month. 

Despite the ruling and requests by Volz’s attorney, there is still no word on when he will be released.

More to come...

Click here to read Tony D’Souza’s exclusive story about the murder of Doris Jiménez, which appeared in Outside’s June issue.

—Ryan Krogh

How Green is Your Candidate?

With the Iowa caucus only weeks away, time is running out to pick your favorite candidate.  Even if you've read all the articles and listened to all the debates, it's hard to know where each politician stands. So we took the one issue our readers care most passionately about, the environment, and made it easy.

Outside and grist.org teamed up and called on Amanda Griscom Little to break down just how green each 2008 presidential contender is. Click here to read the in-depth summaries first published in our December issue.  Since actions often speak louder than words, we've cataloged  both what the candidates have said, and what they've done.

Eric Volz To Be Released From Nicaraguan Jail

A Nicaraguan appeals court overturned the conviction of American Eric Volz, sentenced in February to a 30-year prison term for the rape and murder of Doris Ivania Jiménez, his Nicaraguan ex-girlfriend.

Jiménez, a young clothing boutique owner, was murdered in the store that she owned. Her death sparked outrage and resentment in the small fishing village of San Juan del Sur, which had seen an influx of Americans hoping to cash in on a real-estate boom in the area. Locals directed much of that resentment towards Volz, a real estate agent in the area, after he was accused of her murder. 

Novelist Tony D’Souza covered the story in Outside’s June issue, gaining access to members of Jiménez’s family, Volz's close friends, and Nicaraguan locals. Though networks and other major news organizations covered the event, D'Souza was the only American journalist to sit through all of Volz’s trial and the first magazine reporter to speak with Volz in prison.

Despite numerous alibis placing Volz more than two hours away from the scene of the crime, he was convicted of the murder along with Julio Martin “Rosita” Chomorro, a supposed accomplice. While overturning Volz's conviction, the appeals court upheld Chomorro’s. 

The ruling called for Volz’s immediate release as the country's attorney general vowed to appeal the decision to Nicaragua’s highest court.

More to come...

Wheelchair Skater Gains Exposure

"Hardcore Sitting" impresario Aaron Fotheringham told Outside earlier this year that what he really wants is some competition, December 2007.  If he continues to generate attention, it won't be long before inspired athletes everywhere challenge him. The 16-year-old  was born with spina bifada, a condition that left him paralyzed from his thighs down, but that didn't prevent him from throwing up tricks in skate parks in his wheelchair and becoming a YouTube sensation.

Now, ESPN has picked up on the Las Vegas-based Fotheringham's story with more video of Fotheringham performing his signature backflip. All future "hardcore sitters" be warned, Fotheringham's already working on his next move - the "chair-whip" - where he will rotate his wheelchair 360 degrees below his body before landing.
--Jason Kerkmans

Fire Destroys Alpinist Magazine Warehouse

    A week after Alpinist magazine, one of the world's premier high-end climbing magazines, suffered a major disaster when its warehouse in Oregon, Illinois, burned to the ground, editor-in-chief Christian Beckwith is hoping readers will lend a hand during the holidays. The fire, which began after a fork lift operator backed into a gas meter, destroyed the magazine's entire inventory of back issues, water bottles, shirts and coffee mugs--a devastating blow before Christmas. According to the local news report, more than 200 firefighters from 20 different houses battled the blaze and, ultimately, $4 million worth of inventory was destroyed.
  "The destruction of our entire inventory, including all our back issues, would have been bad enough," said publisher Marc Ewing. "This one, though, came in the middle of the holidays--our bread-and-butter season."
   Despite the loss, editor-in-chief Christian Beckwith says the magazine--headquartered in Jackson, Wyoming--is going strong and all subscriptions will be fulfilled. He said the biggest thing people can do is buy a subscription, or give one as a gift, so head over to alpinist.com and sign up for what Messner and Anker called the best climbing magazine in the world.
--Damon Tabor

A Bamboo CPU

Asustek Computer, the Taiwan-based PC maker, has unveiled its latest unique laptop, the ASUS Eco Book. And though it's guts may be the same as any other notebook, this portable PC is certainly different than all other computers that have come before it - well, maybe not entirely. As Reuters reported on Thursday, the Eco Book is housed in a case made of sustainable bamboo strips as opposed to common plastics. The laminated bamboo prototype is still undergoing testing by company engineers to make sure it can withstand the heat put off by microprocessors and monitors but if all goes as expected the Eco Book notebook should be in customers hands before too long. As for being the first wooden computer, sorry ASUS, the Apple I, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak's wooden-housed 1976 creation, beat them to that title awhile back.
--Jason Kerkmans

FREE TAOS! Oh, wait, they just did.

Starting March 19th, 2008, the word "ride" will become a part of the Taos lingo when snowboarders are allowed up the lifts on a mountain that has always been ski-only. Family-owned for over 50 years, Taos Ski Valley sits about one hour north of Santa Fe and has bragging rights to some of the steepest and best terrain in New Mexico, over half of which is expert-only.

The decision to leave the group of ski-exclusive resorts--now only Utah's Deer Valley and Alta and Vermont's Mad River Glen--was an inevitable one, Taos says. "The question was never if we would allow snowboarders," Taos explained in a press release on Thursday, "it was when." The family-oriented mountain recognizes that snowboarding is a growing trend among youngsters and by not permitting them, entire families were heading elsewhere.

While some skiers are a little miffed ("Don't do it! Snowboarding are crazy people!" one skier writes on Taos's snowboard-devoted website, ridetaos.org), others are more welcoming ("I'm a skier mainly. Cheers to all the snowboarders who just want to have fun!"). --Alicia Carr

Weigh in with your thoughts in the comment section below. Should ski-only resorts stay exclusive or should they open their slopes up to everyone?

Photo courtesy of Seth Bullington

Hunting School, Orca Style

Q&A with Hiking Phenom Andrew Skurka

In 2005, Andrew Skurka became the first person to hike the entire Sea-to-Sea Route, a nearly 7,800-mile trek from Cape Gaspe, Quebec, to the Olympic Peninsula that took him 339 days to complete. The following summer he cooked up his next big trip: a 6,875-mile journey through the American West linking the Pacific Crest Trail, Pacific Northwest Trail, Continental Divide Trail, Grand Enchantment Trail, and Arizona Trail, plus a trail-less segment through the Sonoran and Mojave deserts. Demetri Coupounas, president of GoLite, Skurka’s lead sponsor, later dubbed this hike the Great Western Loop. Skurka finished the Great Western Loop on November 3, 2007, after 208 days of hiking.

Here he talks about the most indispensible gear he used (it involves a can of cat food), how he put back 11 energy bars a day, and where he’s off to next.

Ride the Rogues

Rogue waves, feared by sailors and lusted after by big-wave surfers, have always been much easier to predict on the pages of movie scripts and literature of the sea novels than out in the deep blue. That might soon change though. A group of  researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles have released a study in the journal Nature in which they looked at light waves and their correlation to the oceans' giant tumblers. As reported by Reuters today, the researchers found that giant waves of light occurred when a predictable change amplified an otherwise normal wave into rogue status, and that otherwise docile waves of water would be equally as likely to grow, in some case as high as an eight-story building, when stimulated in the same way. What that means for surfer's like Australia's Ross Clarke-Jones (Outside, October 2007) is that the search might have just gotten a whole lot easier.

--Jason Kerkmans

Photo: Justin Wood

Astana to ride Trek and SRAM in 2008

With the demise of Lance Armstrong's Discovery Channel pro cycling team, it looked like there was a good chance that Trek Bicycles would be out of the major pro ranks in 2008. For a manufacturer that had seen its bikes ridden to overall victory in eight of the past nine Tours de France, including Alberto Contador's 2007 win on Trek's brand-new Madone, it would have been a shocking disappointment. But the Wisconsin-based company announced to day that it will be the bike and apparel supplier for Team Astana next season.

The scandal-plagued team recently hired Discovery Channel director Johan Bruyneel to turn the squad around. And after bringing along much of his former Discovery support staff and several of his riders—including contador and Levi Leipheimer, who finished third in this year's Tour—Bruyneel will now be able to count on support from the company that supplied the bikes during his glory years with Armstrong.

The Americanization of Astana, which is based in Kazakhstan, will carry through to components, as it was announced last month that the team will use the top-tier Red group from Chicago-based SRAM on all of its bikes.

—John Bradley

Gore Calls for Bold Environmental Change

At the Nobel Prize ceremony in Oslo, former Vice President and Outside Green All-Star Al Gore once again sounded the alarm on the need to combat global warming. Referring to the web of life "ripped and frayed," Gore called for a universal global cap on emissions and a new treaty to replace the Kyoto protocol by the beginning of 2010. He also singled out the United States and China — the world’s largest emitters of carbon dioxide — on their failure to effectively deal with climate change and said the Bush Administration was one of the principle stumbling blocks to the current talks in Bali. Gore, who won an Academy Award for his documentary, "An Inconvenient Truth," shared this year's Nobel Peace Prize with the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. "We, the human species, are confronting a planetary emergency," Gore said during his speech, "a threat to the survival of our civilization that is gathering ominous and destructive potential even as we gather here."
--Damon Tabor

Outside on the CBS Early Show

Hardshell, softshell, crossover, hybrid, down? Check out Outside Executive Editor Michael Roberts dropping science on the CBS Early Show about the how-to of buying winter jackets. Watch the full story here, or head over to the Outside Winter Buyer's Guide to get the low-down on new cold-weather gear from Patagonia to The North Face, Marmot to Mountain Hardwear, and everything in between.

Critic's Choose Into the Wild

Into the Wild, the Sean Penn-directed film based on the book by Outside Editor at Large Jon Krakauer, led all movies with seven nominations for this year's Critics Choice Awards today. Nominations include Best Actor (Emile Hirsch), Best Supporting Actor (Hal Holbrook), and Best Supporting Actress (Catherine Keener), as well as Best Picture for the film that Penn devoted two years to making after first spending ten years just getting the movie rights for the true story about Chris McCandless's life and death. For more info on the story and the movie, as well as an exclusive podcast with Outside Editor Christopher Keyes on his experiences following the making of the film, be sure to see Outside's September 2007 coverage. And to read the original 1993 article by Krakauer that led to the book, check out Outside's Death of an Innocent.
--Jason Kerkmans

Photo: Into the Wild star Emile Hirsch (Photographed by Dan Winters)

South Pole Vacation

Honeymoon vacation? Consider a relaxing jaunt down to the Antarctic. A Britain-based company called Discover the World plans on becoming the first tour operator to run trips to the geographic South Pole. During the eight-day trip, visitors can get a first-hand glimpse of Antarctica's windswept plateaus and check out wildlife including seals and the occasional orca and humpback whale, while also kicking back for a few hours at 90º south, 0º west—the South Pole. The trip will cost close to $37,000, which includes food, double-lined tents, a bowl of hot water and sponge for washing, temperatures as low as -20F, and plenty of snot-crusted beards. Sounds like the perfect romantic getaway to us.
--Damon Tabor

Google's Green Making Green

And while Google is fueling the idea of sending yourself to the moon, it isn't exactly ignoring the need to fuel modern life - and Internet search engines - on this planet either. At the end of November the company unveiled it's RE<C program, which is setting out to develop energy from renewable sources at a cheaper rate then energy derived from coal. Bold, sure, but according to an online article by the Nature Publishing Group, which produces the journal Nature, Google's investment is just one of many recent, private investments made in California's newest gold rush, or rather Green Rush. Looking for your own 21st Century Eureka moment? Check out Outside's Green Investment Guide.
--Jason Kerkmans

Photo: Courtesy Google

Moonrush!

Silicone Valley giant and well-on-its-way-to-world-domination Google, Inc. announced today the first team had officially entered its $30 million Lunar X PRIZE, a competition to land a privately funded robotic rover on the the Moon. The company, Odyssey Moon, plans on landing a small 'bot capable of delivering scientific and commercial payloads, as well as ultimately lowering the price of space travel. Dr. Robert Richards, the company's founder, also said he hoped the mission would help catalyze a “moonrush to Earth’s sister world." The lunar competition--dubbed Moon 2.0--is the  brainchild of the X Prize Foundation, an Outside 100 pick and organization famous for putting truckloads of prize money behind pie-in-the-sky projects like rocketing civilians off the planet and developing a production-ready 100-mpg-car. The Foundation's latest initiative, according to the founder, Dr. Peter Diamandis, is an effort to take the first commercial steps toward opening a multi-billion dollar market for space resources. Eureka! Thar's Neptunium 237 in them thar hills!
--Damon Tabor

Gear Guy: Which camera can handle both mountaineering expeditions and snorkel trips?

Which camera can take the abuse of an Everest expedition and a 10-foot dive at the local snorkeling spot? I would prefer a digital (maybe even a digital SLR).

— Osvaldo
Miami, Florida

I hope it occurs to you that you’re asking for quite a bit: a camera that can withstand cold, get knocked around, and then take a swim. And actually, no SLRs are up to the task; their interchangeable lens mounts are a natural leak point, so they’d need some sort of waterproof case (more on that in a moment).

On the point-and-shoot front, probably your best bet is the Olympus 770SW ($325; olympus.com), which Olympus bills as the “toughest camera made.” And it might be. It has a steel case that’s crush-proof, is designed to take a 5-foot fall, can go as deep underwater as 33 feet, and operates well down to 14 degrees. Not bad! Plus it’s a decent little camera, with 7 megapixels of resolution and a 3x optical zoom lens.

MORE>>

Photo: 770SW Camera, courtesy Olympus

Which camera do you use on the mountain and/or in the water? Let us know here by commenting.

African Sun Could Power Europe

Europe is considering a $10 billion project to build a string of gigantic solar reflectors and power stations in the northern African desert that could supply one-sixth of Europe's electricity needs, according Desertec, the backers of the project. More than a hundred of the plants, each fitted with thousands of huge mirrors, would generate electricity by concentrated solar power--giant mirrors that focus the sun's rays on water, which in turn creates steam and drives turbines. The electricity would then be transmitted via undersea cable to Europe and then distributed across the continent to European Union member nations. And in addition to allowing significant cuts in carbon emissions, the stations could also be used as desalination plants to provide fresh water to desert countries in Africa, according to the Desertec plan. "We don't make enough use of deserts," said physicist Gerhard Knies, co-founder of the scheme. "The sun beats down on them mercilessly during the day and heats the ground to tremendous temperatures. Then at night that heat is radiated back into the atmosphere. In other words, it is completely wasted. We need to stop that waste and exploit the vast amounts of energy that the sun beams down to us."
--Damon Tabor