The Weekly Anthropocene, January 8 2025
27 new species from Peru, lithium in Mali, China's Great Solar Wall, the sea turtle renaissance, snow leopards in Kazakhstan, an Anthropocene-ready California grid, a new U.S. wildlife fund, and more!
Peru
A recent Conservation International expedition to the Alto Mayo landscape of Peru (at the intersection of the Andes Mountains and the Amazon Rainforest) reports that they have found a stunning 27 species new to science, including twelve new insect species, eight new fish species, four new mammal species, and three new amphibian species. Particularly striking highlights include an amphibious mouse, a tree-climbing salamander, a new genus of dwarf squirrel, and a bizarre-looking blob-headed catfish.
Mali
The ruling military junta of the impoverished Sahelian nation of Mali recently signed a deal with leading Chinese producer Ganfeng Lithium to operate the Goulamina mine (located near Bougouni, south of the capital city of Bamako), which taps one of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of lithium-bearing spodumene. (Lithium is a critical battery mineral). Production has reportedly already begun, with a projected 15.6 million tonnes of spodumene concentrate set to be produced over the next 23 years. The world cleantech boom won’t be running out of lithium anytime soon!
China
NASA recently published new satellite imagery of China’s ever-expanding “Great Solar Wall” energy fields, currently consisting of over 5.4 GW (5,400 MW) of solar capacity in the Kubuqi Desert of Inner Mongolia. The Kubuqi region, which as a flat, sunny, and desolate area relatively close to major cities is ideally located for solar power, is planned to host 100 GW of solar by 2030. And NASA reports that building solar farms there will likely slow desertification, preventing dune movement and encouraging grass growth. The Solar Age continues to accelerate, with more and more large-scale solar farms bringing a cornucopia of benefits to global decarbonization as well as local economies and ecosystems!
”The construction is part of China’s multiyear plan to build a “solar great wall” designed to generate enough energy to power Beijing…
In addition to generating power, planners hope that the installation will have other benefits. They think it may help curb desertification by preventing the movement of dunes and slowing winds. Also, the elevated panels create shade that slows evaporation and may make it easier to grow pasture grasses and other crops beneath them.
Analysis of Landsat data indicates that solar projects have contributed to the greening of deserts in other parts of China in recent years.”
— NASA Earth Observatory
China also recently announced long-term plans to build the world’s largest-ever hydroelectric dam on the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra River in Tibet, set to be considerably larger than the Three Gorges Dam when complete. This should generate large amounts of relatively clean energy, but concerns abound over oppression of Tibetans related to previous dam projects as well as the long-term potential for Chinese control over the Brahmaputra’s downstream flow in India and Bangladesh.
China has reduced its emissions of sulfur dioxide (a major cause of smog and acid rain) by more than two-thirds in the last fifteen years, thanks to implementing emissions limits and sulfur scrubbers for coal plants. Great work!
Sea Turtles
A new study pulled together years of reports from around the world to determine that hawksbill, green, Olive ridley, Kemp’s ridley, and loggerhead sea turtles appear to be thriving across Earth’s oceans, with reduced demand for turtle soup and shell products plus enhanced beach nest conservation efforts leading to boom times. The researchers identified only five nesting sites where sea turtle populations were declining, with 28 nesting sites seeing increases — often substantial ones! A few highlights:
The number of endangered Kemp’s ridley sea turtle nests in the Gulf of Mexico increased from 702 in 1985 to 17,000 in 2022.
The number of loggerhead sea turtle nests on a Cabo Verde island increased from 500 in 2008 to 35,000 in 2020.
The number of green turtle nests at Aldabra in the Seychelles increased from 4,000 in 1980 to about 16,000 in 2018.
A major nesting site at Zakynthos, Greece appears to have remained approximately stable between 1984 to 2021.
Out of the six known sea turtle species, the only one not appearing to be thriving is the leatherback sea turtle, the only species found to be declining at multiple nesting locations — though many are still doing well. Alongside massive marine mammal rebounds worldwide, sea turtles are emerging as a new example of an Anthropocene wildlife renaissance!
Egypt
Egypt has completed its largest-ever solar farm — so far, at least! The Abydos solar farm, built by an Emirati developer, can power 300,000 households with its 500 megawatts (0.5 GW) of electricity-generating capacity. Grid-scale battery storage is being built on-site, a bigger 1 GW solar farm is on the way, and a 500 MW wind farm in Egypt is set for completion in the first quarter of 2025 as well. Great work!
Kazakhstan
After years of conservation work, the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan reports that their snow leopard (Panthera uncia) population has rebounded to an estimated 152 to 189 individuals in the country, a 26% increase since 2019 and approximately double the population in the 1990s. Spectacular work!
United States
The Energy Department’s Loan Programs Office has conditionally committed to the largest loan in its history: $15 billion for Project Polaris, set to massively upgrade the California state grid with a diverse portfolio of battery storage, hydropower, grid reconductoring, power transmission, and virtual power plant projects. A true 21st-century clean and resilient Anthropocene-ready grid for the Golden State! Spectacular.
The stalwart Energy Department LPO has finalized a $1.45 billion loan to QCells to build a fully integrated factory in Cartersville, Georgia that will produce solar ingots, wafers, cells, and panels — in other words, all the steps of the solar manufacturing process under one roof, at the largest scale in American history. QCells already runs a highly successful IRA-supported solar factory in Dalton, Georgia; the new Cartersville factory will build on this experience. Once complete, the new factory will produce 3.3 GW of solar panels per year, enough to equip half a million U.S. households. Spectacular work!
On January 6, 2025, President Biden took executive action to protect the entire U.S. East Coast, the Pacific coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and parts of Alaskan waters from any future offshore oil and gas drilling. (That’s almost all U.S. coastline, excluding the already drilling-heavy central and western Gulf of Mexico plus Alaska’s Cook Inlet). This protects a truly vast area amounting to over 625 million acres of ocean, meaning that with this action, President Biden has now conserved more U.S. lands and waters than any other president in history. Notably, this action uses legal authority explicitly granted to the president by the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, likely making it extremely legally difficult for the next president to reverse without Congressional action. Truly spectacular work!
The U.S. EPA’s $7 billion Inflation Reduction Act-funded Solar for All program has legally “obligated” its disbursements to a wide array of grant recipients working to electrify low-income households, making it unlikely that the next administration can legally claw back this program’s funds. Great work!
The Deparment of Energy recently announced an $11 million ($0.011 billion) funding opportunity for research and development of new Solar with Wildlife and Ecosystem Benefits (SolWEB) methods, helping enable large-scale solar farms to coexist with and directly benefit wildlife and/or agriculture on their sites. (As this newsletter has previously reported, many studies are finding that solar panels can promote plant growth in arid climates through shade and condensation). This is a very small amount of money compared to, say, the major LPO cleantech manufacturing loans, but it’s really exciting to see the U.S. government working to accelerate one of the most “win-win” positive complementarities in the world right now! Great news.
In California, the entire state ran on 100% clean energy for 98 whole days in 2024, with zero blackouts or cost increases. A fully clean grid isn’t sci-fi- it’s current reality!
On December 26, 2024, Governor Kathy Hochul signed the long-delayed Climate Change Superfund Act, making New York the second state in the nation (after Vermont) to hold fossil fuel companies financially responsible for a share of damages from climate disasters. This will be a big legal fight, but one holding great potential!
The new congestion pricing system came into effect in New York City on January 5, 2024, introducing a toll to drive into downtown Manhattan during peak hours. This should reduce gridlock - and emissions - while raising money for public transport!
The Empire Wind 1 project has reached financial close, and is now set to complete an 810 MW offshore wind farm (an artificial reef generating enough power for 500,000 homes!) in the waters of New York State by 2027!
Wisconsin has finally approved the much-needed 1.3 GW (1,300 MW) Vista Sands solar farm! The developer has also pledged to restore up to 7,900 acres of former agricultural land in the area by planting a mix of wildflower seeds. Superb work!
As of January 1, 2025, every single city government building in Chicago (including two international airports, 98 fire stations, and more) now runs on 100% clean electricity, thanks to the 592 MW Double Black Diamond solar farm in central Illinois. Chicago now hopes to power all buildings in the city with clean electricity by 2035. Great work!
American EV sales rose 11.5% year-over-year from November 2023 to November 2024, as they accounted for 10.4% of total light-duty vehicle sales that month.
Heatmap has a great new article about the potential opportunities - and risks - for the burgeoning U.S. lab-grown clean meat industry.
The United States Congress has PASSED a heartening multiplicity of bipartisan wildlife conservation funding bills as part of a must-pass end-of-year spending bill. A particular highlight is the U.S. Foundation for International Conservation Act, which establishes a fund providing up to $100 million each year to support local communities and Indigenous peoples’ conservation work around the globe. Truly excellent work!
Another bipartisan win is the Good Samaritan Remediation of Abandoned Hardrock Mines Act, which makes it easier to clean up and build renewable energy projects on abandoned mines. Superb work! Many world-improving solutions are gaining ground; faster than most people think!
Other then its head, the rest of the "blob headed catfish" reminds me of the Plecostomus species. 🤔
Another really good one. I would like to offer two thoughts on these topics.
1. Spodume, a lithium bearing pyroxene mineral, is not actually a good source of lithium for batteries. It is a good source of lithium for glasses. I learned this while consulting for a well known and controversial project in western maine.
2. All those solar farms over fertile agricultural lands are not quite what they seem. They were largely put where there because those fields are tainted with forever chemicals from the beneficial reuse of solid wastes, fire training activities, or AFFF foam migration. Solar leases are a good way for the farmer to maintain a revenue stream through senescence, and it is still possible for the land to be available for phytoremediation strategies being pioneered at DOD-related AFFF remediation activities and a few non-DOD related sites. The pace at which this type of remediation blossoms is coupled tightly with the role out of some really cool decarbonization technologies (pyrolysis w/ flameless thermal oxidation / biocharacene technology).