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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple style='word-wrap:break-word'><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><div style='border:none;border-top:solid #E1E1E1 1.0pt;padding:3.0pt 0in 0in 0in'><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> spike@rainier66.com <spike@rainier66.com> <br><br><b><o:p></o:p></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><div><div><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>>…But wait, there’s more. I will write about it in the next post, gotta scoot…spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>I am back temporarily, so do let me continue with my flight of fancy with the solar facility on the southwest corner of the north range at China Lake. I was describing an area a few square miles down there, but the north range alone is about 1700 square miles. If one starts after a hearty breakfast, one can drive around the north range outside of it and arrive back by lunchtime, to give you an idea of the scale of the place.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>It is generally considered a no-go for solar power generation because of the endangered desert tortoise, so never mind that for now and consider as an alternative the territory of Western Sahara, which is about 60 times the land area of the China Lake north range, very near 100k square miles (about a quarter of a million square km if you think in sensible units (I do.)) That territory has a few thousand people living in all of it but it isn’t exactly clear what country they belong to. It claims to be independent, but Morocco administers it (whatever that means) and Mauritania claims it (or will if anything of value is ever discovered there.) No one around there gives a damn about endangered species but all give a damn about potential income from China or anywhere else.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>Considering an area that size, equivalent to a square about 500 km on a side, imagine the solar conversion sites which could be built and defended out there, if the Chinese or anyone else with plenty of money were to buy it from Morocco or Mauritania or the self-proclaimed government of Western Sahara, or hell all three: currently that land is nearly worthless, pennies an acre. They could haul in Chinese people to work alongside the locals who want a job, start building solar facilities like crazy, or rather start building like perfectly sane, for the alternatives are far crazier.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>With all the power that could be generated out there, coal could be converted to liquid fuels, water could be purified from the sea, fertilizer could be manufactured, ore could be refined, lithium battery factories could be supplied and powered, solar panels could be manufactured, the proles working out there could be kept cool and comfortable, and even the most hard core environmentalists might go along with the plan, realizing that it might take away habitat from some unknown beast, but it reduces overall reliance on oil, it reduces greenhouse gases, it supplies the planet with refined stuff we need and it all happens far away in an area none of us has ever seen anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'>spike<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:18.0pt;font-family:"Comic Sans MS"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div><div><blockquote style='border:none;border-left:solid #CCCCCC 1.0pt;padding:0in 0in 0in 6.0pt;margin-left:4.8pt;margin-top:5.0pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:5.0pt'><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></blockquote></div></div></body></html>