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Sun, sand — cash in hand ... China’s Gobi Desert solar power plant has tripled in size in just three years and now produces 5.2 gigawatts. Source: NASA Source: Supplied
AS the Abbott Government gears up Australia to provide more and more coal to China’s booming industry, new NASA photos reveal how that nation is surging ahead — with solar energy.
Deep in China’s Gobi Desert is one expanding element of the world-leading economy’s future: A massive solar energy farm.
The rapidly developing nation is the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gases. But this week it pledged to reverse that trend within 15 years.
It has committed to sourcing a full 20 per cent of its energy needs from non-fossil fuels by 2030.
Last year it invested AU$108 billion in solar projects — more than double any other country.
That money is starting to produce results.
NASA’s Earth Observatory reveals that, within just three years, the size of one plant in the Gobi Desert has tripled.
Work on China’s first full-scale solar power station began in 2009, in the remote Gansau Province desert.
The China Daily reports the plant reached 5.2 gigawatts last year.
China now says its whole solar energy program has a total generation capacity of 33 gigawatts — and growing.
Go on a road trip into our dependence on oil and look into the future of a wide-range of renewable energy and bio-fuels.