The Weekly Anthropocene, December 11 2024
The Lobito Corridor projects, solar vineyards in France and Italy, a Taklamakan shelterbelt, China's EV boom, Hawaiian crows, multivitamins for corals, modular housing, Wisdom the albatross, and more!
Angola & Zambia
On December 2, 2024, Joe Biden became the first-ever sitting U.S. President to visit the African nation of Angola. A core focus of the visit was the Lobito Corridor project, an effort to extend a railway line from Angola’s seaport Lobito on the Atlantic to the vast copper mines of Zambia1 in the African interior. (The global cleantech boom needs lots and lots of copper, a key component of electricity-carrying wires).
The Lobito Corridor project is widely viewed as a major U.S. geopolitical priority and a highly visible counterbalance to Chinese influence in Africa. Beyond the already-considerable geopolitical and economic impact of a new railway linking a major minerals region to the ocean, America is investing in a wide range of projects in Angola and Zambia along the Lobito Corridor, including land-mine removal, solar minigrids, school meals, grain silos, drinking water treatment, and much more. Furthermore, American companies are gaining unprecedented access to vital critical minerals in the region, with U.S. startup KoBold using AI analysis of existing geology data to discover (and soon, mine) a gigantic new copper lode in Zambia. Fascinating!
France & Italy
A while ago, this newsletter reported on promising results from early solar vineyards (a form of agrivoltaics) in Italy, with grapes grown under solar panels providing 20-60% higher yields. Now, more data on solar vineyards has come in, this time from two pilot sites in France run by agrivoltaics pioneer Sun’Agri.
And the results are stellar! At the Sun’Agri solar vineyards, grape yields were (like in Italy) 20 to 60% higher, depending on the strain of grape. The presence of the protective solar canopies “optimized the microclimate” by increasing humidity in the immediate area and protecting the grapes against extreme temperatures. Irrigation needs fell by 20% to 70%, and the mortality rate from frost dropped by 25% to 50%.
For context, France installed a record-high 3.32 GW (3,328 MW) of solar in the first nine months of 2024, and Italy recently finalized plans to build 1.5 GW (1,500 MW) of new agrivoltaics projects. The solar revolution continues its epochal surge worldwide, and we’re identifying more and more interesting side benefits!
China
China has reportedly planted a 3,000 kilometer “green belt” of trees that completely encircles the Taklamakan Desert, completing efforts that began in 1978.
The belt around the Taklamakan is part of a larger array of Chinese mass tree-planting programs intended to reduce desertification and sandstorms. Together known as the Three North Shelterbelt or “Great Green Wall,” they are set to be completed in 2050.
The cleantech boom in China continues to progress ridiculously quickly, transforming the future of the world. Battery-powered EVs and hybrids have now accounted for more than half of all new cars sold in China in the four months since July 2024. Relatedly, the IEA estimates that gasoline demand in China will decline sharply every year from 2025 onwards. Wow!
Botswana
After a landmark election in which the political party that had ruled Botswana since its independence in 1966 lost every single seat it held in the legislature, the new president announced plans to diversify the nation’s economy (historically heavily dependent on diamonds) by boosting solar power.
“Botswana receives more than 3,200 hours of sunlight annually and averages 21 megajoules per square metre which is among the highest in the world.
The potential of solar energy is abundant."
— Duma Boko, the new President of Botswana
United States
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution are field-testing innovative new methods of building coral-nurturing artificial reefs. Next to a natural reef in the U.S. Virgin Islands, they’re testing what are essentially “multivitamins for corals,” providing tiles enriched with micronutrients like manganese, zinc, and iron as a healthy growth substrate for young coral polyps. Great work!
“The artificial reef we’re building is going in next to a natural reef that has been severely impacted by marine heat waves and extreme storm events.
The artificial reef will protect the shoreline from storm surge and erosion while providing habitat for corals struggling from climate change, as we work toward restoring natural reefs in the area.”
-Marilyn Brandt, coral disease ecologist
A new report found that the Inflation Reduction Act has now caused U.S. solar manufacturing capacity to nearly QUINTUPLE (multiply by 5!) since 2022, as factory building continues to surge nationwide. Spectacular!
The Biden-Harris Administration has granted the final federal permit needed to begin construction on the Maryland Offshore Wind Project, a titanic 2 GW (2,000 MW) clean energy-producing and domestic manufacturing-boosting artificial reef! Spectacular news!
Near Charlotte, North Carolina, Duke Energy is planning to knock down a coal plant and install grid-scale batteries in its (already grid-connected) place!
In November 2024, conservationists released a “close-knit group” of three male and two female Hawaiian crows (Corvus hawaiiensis, known as the ʻalalā) into the Kīpahulu Forest Reserve of Maui, on the slopes of the Haleakalā volcano. Prior to this introduction, the species (a skilled tool user!) had been considered extinct in the wild since 2002, with a population of about 110 individuals in captivity as of 2024.
Notably, this is another example of the emerging “proactive conservation” trend of introducing endangered species to new habitats outside their historic range2, as scientists found that Maui would likely be considerably safer for the Hawaiian crows than their ancestors’ habitat on the Big Island of Hawaii.
Furthermore, any long-term future for wild Hawaiian crows would substantially benefit from the ongoing BIL and IRA-funded efforts to eradicate avian malaria in Maui by releasing Wolbachia-inoculated mosquitoes. Superb work!
Real estate developer Greystar has opened America’s biggest-ever modular housing project in Coraopolis, Pennsylvania, a town near Pittsburgh. Unlike traditional buildings which are constructed on-site, the components were made in a Greystar factory in Knox, Pennsylvania, then simply stacked at a final site “like jumbo Lego blocks.” The Coraopolis development will have 312 apartments available, and was reportedly built 40% faster, 10% cheaper, with one-third of the workforce, and with 90% less waste than a comparable non-modular housing project. Greystar’s Knox factory has six other modular housing projects in the pipeline. Notably, mass production, economies of scale, and modularity driving a high product improvement “learning rate” have historically been the secret sauce for making a product much cheaper very quickly (like solar panels!), presenting tantalizing possibilities for a possible U.S. cheap housing boom in the near future. Excellent work!
In October 2024, the USDA Forest Service announced over $265 million in grant funding to preserve privately held forestlands through the Forest Legacy Program, partnering with 17 states to fund 21 projects covering nearly 335,000 acres of forest — more than seven times the land area of Washington D.C! The newly conserved forests include the Buffalo Creek Project in North Carolina, the Sunfish Creek Project in Ohio, the Stimson Timberland Legacy Project in Washington State, and more.
Across all of 2024, the Forest Service has invested nearly $420 million to conserve over 500,000 acres of American forest thanks to the Forest Legacy Program, which recently got a funding boost from the ever-excellent Inflation Reduction Act.
In 1956, U.S. researchers on the remote Midway Atoll placed a tracking band on a young female Laysan albatross (Phoebastria immutabilis), who has since acquired the name of “Wisdom.” Now, at an estimated 74 years old, Wisdom is the oldest known wild bird on Earth. She has laid approximately 50 to 60 eggs in her lifetime, up to 30 of which produced chicks that lived to fledge. Now, in December 2024, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reports that Wisdom has recently laid an egg on Midway Atoll, her first in four years and possibly her 60th overall, with a new mate!
Over her long life, Wisdom has survived the giant 2011 tsunami, successfully navigated the rise of global warming and plastic debris, contributed substantially to her species’ ongoing recovery, and is estimated to have flown over 3 million miles — enough to go from the Earth to the Moon and back six times! Extraordinary.
Notably, Zambia — like much of the world — is at the dawn of a solar power boom, as the nation struggles with widespread drought.
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