We’re slowly drying out and detoxing from fossil fuel with solar power and other clean and green energies helping with the transition. On India’s coast, the state of Gurjarat has a plan to cover it’s long stretches of canals with solar panels. Besides producing electricity, the panels will block sun light from the water’s surface and reduce evaporation leaving more of the precious water for drinking and irrigation. The utilitarian canals snake along over 11,000 miles making the possibilities for expansion massive.
The immediate goal is to cover 10% of the canals with panels which will produce 2.2 gigawatts of electricity. That translates to enough power for over a million and a half American homes. Indian homes use far less electricity than American homes, so the numbers are even more impressive there. The project is far from completed and other problems may arise, but dual purposing the canals eliminates the common stumbling block of obtaining enough land for large scale solar installations.
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