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| "To": junk papers collage, digital |
Want music?
Click: Paul Simon, You Can Call Me AL.
2GN2S
I finished another great book, Frozen River. Historical, based on fact, set in Maine 1750-1790, I loved it. I like character-driven plots, and this was amazing. It's always sad to end a good book, so I try to have another in the wings.
Now I know this doesn't sound like an appealing read, but it was recommended by my very smart second (?) cousin, Michelle, who knows I have a lot of work to do in order to eventually move. It is neither dour nor heavy, in fact the author assures me "despite its ominous name, Swedish Death Cleaning will not hasten my demise." I am on book 2, so a quarter in, and feel encouraged. Can a book get me out of these doldrums? We'll see? Thank you, Michelle.
In China's Inner Mongolia, on land that was classified as severely degraded desert just fifteen years ago, a solar installation now covers 1,600 square kilometers — an area larger than Hong Kong — and generates 16 gigawatts of clean electricity, enough to power more than 24 million households annually. The Kubuqi Desert Solar Base is the largest solar installation ever built in a single location anywhere on Earth. But what distinguishes Kubuqi from every other large-scale solar project in history is not its generating capacity. It is what happened to the land underneath the panels while the electricity was flowing above.
Before construction, the Kubuqi was one of China's most actively advancing desert zones, with sand dunes consuming productive farmland at the rate of hundreds of meters per year. The panels were deliberately mounted at elevated heights above ground level. The shade they cast reduced surface temperatures, slowed evaporation, and allowed soil moisture to begin accumulating beneath. Within four years of panel installation, vegetation coverage under the array increased from near zero to over 65 percent. Sheep now graze between the panel rows. Crops grow in the shade of panels that generate electricity above them. The desert is physically retreating — and the wider Kubuqi development zone has seen approximately 6,000 square kilometers of previously degraded land restored to productive agricultural use.
China did not build a solar farm that happens to sit on desert land. It built a solar farm that is simultaneously healing the land it occupies, demonstrating that at sufficient scale, renewable energy infrastructure can be an ecological restoration tool as well as a clean electricity generator. The panels face the sun. Underneath them, the earth is coming back to life.
Source: National Energy Administration of China / Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2024
Just because ...
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| Grey Catbird |
Saturday's Smiles ...
Hoping you see all the good things in your day.
