Solar power turns China's 'sea of death' highway into green corridor

A 522-kilometer highway cutting through one of the world's most hostile deserts has reached a green energy milestone, generating more than 15 million kilowatt-hours of solar power and proving that even the harshest environments can host sustainable infrastructure.

The Tarim Desert Highway, which traverses the Taklimakan Desert in northwest China – a place so forbidding it is known as the "sea of death" – has become a working model for zero-carbon road operations since its solar-powered irrigation system went online.

The country's energy giant China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) said on Monday that the project's 109 solar-powered pumping stations now provide all electricity needed to sustain a 436-kilometer ecological shelter belt, a green barrier protecting the road from shifting sands.

As saxaul forests along the route entered their flowering season, irrigation operations reached their annual peak, running entirely on sunlight rather than diesel.

The 15 million kWh of power generated to date has displaced more than 4,100 tonnes of diesel and cut carbon dioxide emissions by about 14,200 tonnes – equivalent to planting nearly 800,000 carbon-sequestering trees in the desert.

CNPC's Tarim Oilfield has expanded the model across the area, building five large-scale solar stations and 239 distributed photovoltaic projects with a combined capacity of 2.6 million kilowatts.