A trio of architects and engineers (named Charlie Paton, Michael Pawlyn, and Bill Watts) have recently been promoting plans for a massive construction project  that could transform the most barren desert into a fertile, energy producing landscape. And as far-fetched as this sounds, the project only takes advantage of technologies that have already been successfully demonstrated in smaller scales.

As pictured above, the Sahara Forest Project (SFP) would combine two different technologies that seem like a natural fit: Concentrated Solar Power, and seawater greenhouses. You can probably figure out what both these are all about from there names alone, but lets look into each a bit more.

Concentrated Solar Power is a form of solar power generation. Instead of using solar collecting materials (i.e solar panels), a Concentrated Solar Power generator uses well-polished parabolic mirrors to concentrate solar energy to focused points. The heat is used to evaporate. The water then turns into steam, which in turn is used to generate electricity. Much in the same way you can light a piece of paper on fire with a magnifying glass, you can reach incredibly high temperatures using an array of computer-controlled mirrors. This system can work when it is cloudy, and in colder environments; but a desert -- such as the ever-expanding Sahara desert -- is ideal.

As the world's supply of fresh water quickly dwindles, many scientists have been investigating methods of desalination, for tapping into salt-water bodies. Many desalination methods have drawbacks, such as the ejection of extra-salty water back into the oceans or the sea. A Seawater Greenhouse attempts to alleviate these drawbacks however, through more efficient use of energy. Besides generating extra fresh water, a Seawater Greenhouse, like most other greenhouses, is a contained environment for growing plants. Seawater is evaporated and then circulated through the greenhouse, cooling and humidifying the air. You can read more about the process here. 

The end goal of the Sahara Forest Project is for making an artificial desert 'micro-climate' that produces food, fresh water, and power, using renewable energy. The plan also calls for the production of more water than is needed by the greenhouse -- the excess water is then soaked up by the surrounding desert, which encourages the growth of plants and adds to underground water reservoirs.

The team behind this idea is currently soliciting investments from many governments in the Middle East, such as Oman and the United Arab Emirates. They believe the system to be incredibly efficient, and cost effective: "Concentrated solar power mirror arrays covering just one per cent of the Earth's deserts could supply a fifth of all current global energy consumption. And one million tonnes of sea water could be evaporated every day from just 20,000 hectares of greenhouses."