Monastery calls sponsors. The SOS left from the oldest Christian monastery in the world, in the Egyptian desert not far from the Red Sea with a very clear message: help us find sponsors to defend our citadel, and the surrounding desert, from pollution and to become a green flag for the planet, a feasible symbol of an environmental change accessible to all.
Launching the international appeal was theancient monastery dedicated to Sant'Antonio Abate, 160 kilometers from Cairo and a short walk from the Red Sea. A thousand-year-old structure that now houses 120 Coptic monks and receives about 2 visitors a day, also offering spiritual and medical assistance to the populations of the area. In 2012, the monks have already installed a photovoltaic system which, however, covers only 20% of their energy needs. To reach 100% and thus respond to Pope Francis' call regarding respect for the earth and the fight against pollution, the monks of Sant'Antonio would like to install 1 megawatt. Currently the monastery obtains 80% of the energy it needs by burning about 100 liters of diesel per month, with emissions that inevitably disperse into the air. But the energy leap, from fossil to solar, is too expensive for the monastery which has thus launched an appeal in search of international sponsors.
The idea of the Coptic friars - who live in a monumental structure built in the place where St. Anthony lived as a hermit in the XNUMXth century - came to the scientists of Enea who for years have been carrying out projects aimed at spreading new technologies for the exploitation of solar power. These activities, coordinated in close collaboration with companies and institutions, fall within a general framework of sustainable socio-economic development, respecting the environment and international agreements on the fight against climate change. It goes without saying that precisely the area of the Middle East and North Africa, as well as sub-Saharan Africa, have an enormous exploitable potential in the field of solar energy.
It is no coincidence that Enea, in collaboration with Egyptian institutions and research centres, has built a pilot plant near Alexandria as part of the "MATS" project which could well fit the needs of the monastery and be replicated on site. It is a concentrating solar system, equipped with storage, capable of distributing both electricity and desalinated water to a community of approximately 1,000 inhabitants in a desert areapromoting their social and economic development. A demonstration plant has been built, as we said, near Alexandria in Egypt (City for Science and Technology in Borg El-Arab) with unique characteristics in the world, including the use of non-polluting thermal fluids and operational management extremely flexible. It is now a question of channeling the financial resources necessary to get the Mats project off the ground for the benefit of the monastery.
The Monastery is among the oldest in the world, built around 356 on the tomb of Saint Anthony the Abbot. Today it looks like an independent village with gardens, a mill, a bakery, five churches and a small clinic to assist Bedouin families living in the desert. There are about 250 employees who work permanently at the monastery and produce, in addition to food products, candles, incense, clothes, objects in wood and steel, electric cables to support the activity of the monastery. A real precious jewel also for its library where hundreds of volumes and manuscripts are kept, dating from the XNUMXth to the XNUMXth century.
