Its Not that Facebook got Coned into Allowing an App to Collect Information About Users that's Odd. Its that 1. They Did Not Immediately Report it. And 2. People Need to Accept that in an Online World There is no Privacy Anymore. This Fact Worries People.

Can Facebook be trusted with your personal info? Voter harvesting scheme shows perils for users

CLOSE SAN FRANCISCO - Can Facebook be trusted with your personal information? That's the question many Americans are asking as Facebook scrambles to contain a growing firestorm over revelations that a data-mining firm working for the Trump campaign improperly got its hands on the personal information of tens of millions of people and created remarkably detailed and intimate profiles that were used to target unsuspecting voters in the presidential election.

From article, ("The Cambridge Analytica scandal gives us a glimpse of how Facebook makes billions of dollars off of our personal information without ever dealing with the consequences," said Chester, a longtime privacy critic of Facebook.

[But, the thing is Facebook did handle the problem.]

 Facebook says the transmission of data to Cambridge Analytics was a violation of its rules and, on Friday, it suspended the firm. On Monday Facebook announced that Cambridge Analytica had agreed to an independent audit by a digital forensics firm. 

Before apps gain access to Facebook users, the Silicon Valley company says it conducts "a robust review" to determine if apps have a legitimate need for users' data. It also noted it has restricted how much personal information outsiders can obtain since the Cambridge Analytica incident. 

"We actually reject a significant number of apps through this process. Kogan’s app would not be permitted access to detailed friends’ data today," Facebook said.

[What is deceptive is in when it reported the problem.]

Facebook says a researcher, Cambridge University's Aleksandr Kogan, gained access to the data of 270,000 Facebook users in 2013 through a personality quiz app that required Facebook users to grant access to their personal information including friends and "likes."

[Had Facebook come clean a while back this might not have seen like such a shock. In fact it may have made for a good piece of political flogger in the 2016 presidential race.
 Then again maybe keeping it hidden until a suitable time was also thought about to lesson the impact on Facebook and its users. Still not right but understandable.])

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Me, "The situation is: had Facebook known that they were being lied to they would have stopped the app from being on its site to being with. There are people out there that will lie to you for personal gain. If you look at EBay, Amazon, or other selling sites. (customer reviews), of companies selling products, you never know if it is a legitimate review or someone paid to lie to boost a company profile. 

The only solution to this is either put less of your data on sites like Facebook or just accept that some information may get out about you. Its like the data that companies (like credit card companies, or online advertisers), trade back and forth about you for money. We allow them to use our data because we are using their products or we clicked on a link. They give long contracts telling you what is shared and what is not shared. 
Look, I can be boil down to this: privacy really does not exist, anymore, in an online world. Its something we have to get used too. A lot of our personal data is collected. Google, Facebook, and many others, basically, use what we tell them to market products at us. 

For the most part we yawn and say okay no big deal, these items, or ads, are just for me. Its when that data is used against you that it is a problem. 

For example, If your a Democrat or a Republican or Independent and instead of there being a level playing field where no one knows what affiliation you are, (secret vote and all), and Democrats are bombarded with Republican political Ads but Republican voters are left alone because they will vote Republican anyway, something is not right here. 
Or, in reverse where you are a Republican and you get thrown ads at you by Democrats only because they know your party affiliation but leave fellow democrats alone... Well, it can be disconcerting. Its not to say, that somehow some of your party affiliation has not been gotten some other way. But, when one party uses it to the disadvantage of another, like in this Facebook case, someone has to be like: is this kosher?

It's something that bothers me a lot, When I quote excerpts for readers to look at on this site. What should I include, and what should I hold back, so people go to a websites original page that I am citing. Is there too much juicy stuff not to include? 
Or, when I fill out personal information on a website: What is too much? What is too little? And who sees what?"     

Stealth is Used to Protect the Pilot of a Plane From Ever Being Detected. Drones Make it So That the Pilot is Not Even There. Which Would the Pilot Prefer?

The Marine Corps wants a 'mega drone' that can take off vertically and is armed to the teeth

The US Marine Corps wants a massive drone that can take off vertically from ships and carry a massive amount of ordinance. The proposed drone would be roughly the same size as the MQ-9 Reaper, and be used for numerous operations, including escort, early warning, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and air support.

From article,

• (The US Marine Corps wants a massive drone that can take off vertically from ships and carry a massive amount of ordinance.

• The proposed drone would be roughly the same size as the MQ-9 Reaper, and be used for numerous operations, including escort, early warning, reconnaissance, electronic warfare, and air support.
• Multiple companies are already in the process of making concepts for the drone, which the Marine Corps wants by 2034.

  ---

The Marine Corps recently released a list of desired specifications for their future drone system, known as the Marine Air Ground Task Force Unmanned Aircraft System-Expeditionary, or MUX.

The requirements, first reported by Military.com, include the ability to take off vertically from ships, carry a combined internal and external payload of 9,500 pounds, and fly at least 700 nautical miles (805 land miles) fully loaded. The Marines also want a cruising speed from 200kt to 300kt (230-340 mph).

The intended missions for the aircraft include escorting V-22 Ospreys to and from their destinations, early warning, communications relay, and picket line guard missions of Marine amphibious ready groups. The MUX would also be used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions.

The Marines want the drone to be armed with a range of weapons that can destroy land and air targets. Air-to-ground weapons could include the AGM-114 Hellfire, the Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System laser-guided rocket, the AGM-88E Anti-radiation missile, and small-diameter bombs.

Air-to-air weapons could include the AIM-9X Sidewinder, and the AIM-120 AMRAAM. The Marines also want the MUX to be able to drop an expendable unmanned aerial vehicle for electronic warfare or early warning operations.

All of this equipment, and the fact that it is supposed to take off vertically, means that the drone is going to have to be big — at least as big as the Air Force's MQ-9 Reaper.

When asked in 2016 if the Marines really needed such a drone, Lt. Gen. Jon Davis, then the deputy commandant for aviation responded, "absolutely we do. And we're going to get it."

"If we do distributed operations, we're going to need all the game we can bring," he said.)

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Me, "The effectiveness of drones are they can be cheap to produce, use today air force weapons and pilots do not have to be in the drone piloting it. They can be elsewhere, safely on the ground. If you compare drones with stealth, stealth is used to protect the pilot of a plane from ever being detected, drones make it so that the pilot is not even there. Which would the pilot prefer?"

Which is Better? A Nissan Leaf's Battery System, or a Chevrolet Bolt Battery System? And Where Does a Tesla Fit In? The Data Says Go With The American Cars.

Battery life of 2018 Nissan Leaf vs 2017 Chevy Bolt EV electric cars: what manuals suggest

It's one of the major questions for any electric-car buyer: How long will the battery pack last? And what would it cost to replace it if I do need a new one sometime down the road? Now a new video looks at that question, comparing the different thermal-management technologies in the batteries of the new 2018 Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Bolt EV electric...

From article, (It's one of the major questions for any electric-car buyer: How long will the battery pack last?

And what would it cost to replace it if I do need a new one sometime down the road?

Now a new video looks at that question, comparing the different thermal-management technologies in the batteries of the new 2018 Nissan Leaf and the Chevrolet Bolt EV electric car.

The presenter is John D. Kelly, a professor in the Auto Technology department of Weber State University in Ogden, Utah.

It's one of several electric-car videos he's done, including a recent pair on the removal and disassembly of the Chevrolet Bolt EV lithium-ion battery pack.

His presentations tend to be methodical, direct, and easy to follow, with a lot of detail presented in high-quality video.

Broadly, it now seems safe to suggest that electric-car batteries with active liquid cooling (and heating) seem to have lower rates of capacity loss—especially under extreme conditions—than do those that use only passive air cooling, such as the Leaf's.

Aggregated data from batteries in the Tesla Model S, for instance, suggests that capacity loss is only on the order of 10 percent even after 100,000 miles.)

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Offshore Wind Power to Get Cheaper and Could Provide the Electrical Power Needs of Hundreds of Millions of Americans.

Wind Power, Not Oil Drilling, Is Future of Offshore Energy

In an era of bitterly divisive politics, there's one thing that unites Democrats and Republicans across the nation: They oppose Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's proposal to allow offshore drilling for oil and gas. Zinke's proposal has drawn bipartisan opposition in almost every state affected, and lawmakers from California to New York are considering legislation to stop it.

 From article, (The National Energy Renewable Laboratory estimates that the potential for offshore wind power development in the North Atlantic is over 2 billion megawatt hours, or MWh, per year , and 492 million MWh per year in the Great Lakes. For comparison, the combined net electric generation of coastal states from Virginia to Maine in 2016 was about 437 MWh, and for Great Lakes states was about 644 MWh, according to the Energy Information Administration.

In other words, most of the power hundreds of millions of Americans need could be generated by offshore wind. Technical potential does not mean economically viability, but if even a small percentage of this potential wind energy is developed, the energy mix in these regions would be much cleaner and safer, and it would create thousands of jobs.

Mid-Atlantic and Northeast states are already moving forward with offshore wind development. Currently, the only offshore wind on the East Coast is a 30-MW wind farm near Block Island, R.I., but there will soon be more.

In 2017, New York, Massachusetts and Rhode Island released a joint report projecting up to 8,000 MW of offshore wind by 2030, potentially resulting in 36,000 jobs.  Since then, these states have committed to a combined 7,500 MW of offshore wind developments, according to Utility Dive.  

• New Jersey: 3,500 MW by 2030
• New York: 2,400 MW by 2030
• Massachusetts: 1,600 MW by 2027

Virginia has announced a 6-MW wind farm 27 miles off Virginia Beach, and Marylandplans to move ahead with a 368-MW offshore wind farm. Connecticut is eyeing a 200-MW offshore wind farm to be developed no later than 2025.

The lone project so far in the Great Lakes is a 20.7-MW demonstration wind farm on Lake Erie near Cleveland, headed by the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp., a public-private partnership. Even this small project is expected to create 500 jobs.

Costs for offshore wind are dropping, particularly in Europe, where 15,000 MW worth of wind farms have already been installed, Utility Dive reports. In the United Kingdom, wind power prices fell 32 percent from 2010 to 2016. Prices in Germany and Denmark reached 6 cents per kilowatt hour in 2016, a rate competitive with onshore wind and natural gas in the U.S. A kilowatt hour, or KWh, equals 1,000 MWh.

U.S. prices are expected to remain higher for now, as port facilities and other infrastructure need to be built out, but they are expected to drop over time. A 2016 studyof Massachusetts offshore wind projected that building out 2,000 MW of wind power would bring the price down to about 11 cents per kilowatt hour. One author of the report thinks it’ll go even lower.)

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A Win Against Multiple Sclerosis!! When a Stem Cell Blood Transfusion Was Done on Patients, it Reset their Immune System, Reversing MS Symptoms!!

Stem cell transplant may revolutionize treatment for multiple sclerosis

People with multiple sclerosis may be able to "reset" their immune system and potentially reverse their symptoms with an infusion of blood-based stem cells. The finding is based on a randomized clinical trial with 110 patients who'd been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis.

From article, (People with multiple sclerosis may be able to "reset" their immune system and potentially reverse their symptoms with an infusion of blood-based stem cells.

The finding is based on a randomized clinical trial with 110 patients who'd been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis. According to the data, stem cell transplant may be an effective treatment for multiple sclerosis (MS). 

The study built on work by Dr. Richard Burt, a stem cell specialist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine, from 2015, the investigation focused on immune cells as a treatment for the illness. The new, highly anticipated data (which have not yet been published or reviewed by experts in the field) were presented on Sunday at the European Society for Bone and Marrow Transplantation in Portugal.  

The object of the intervention was to stop “the immune attack on the brain,” said Burt, who led the new study, too. Stem cells from a person's own blood were collected 10 days after they started a drug regimen and then reinjected. 

The study compared the stem cell transplant with the best available drug therapy for each patient, as determined by a neurologist.

The main goal of the trial was to see whether the transplant worsened neurological symptoms. According to the abstract of Burt's presentation, about 60 percent of the patients who received drug therapy experienced a decline as measured by neurologists on standardized scales; by comparison, only six percent of patients who received the transplant progressed similarly. [So, basically, 60% of patients on drug therapy, the drug lost its potency against MS, where as this only happened to 6% who received a transplant.] 

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SpaceX Leases Land to Build a Manufacturing Facility Near the Ocean to Build the BFR, (A New Document and Source Speculate). So, Far, No Confirmation From SpaceX if it is Indeed for the BFR

SpaceX indicates it will manufacture the BFR rocket in Los Angeles

Anyone who has visited SpaceX's rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, knows that the company has filled up its facilities with Falcon 9 first stages, payload fairings, and Dragon capsules. In the coming years, as the company transitions into manufacturing the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR vehicle, it will need a lot more capacity.

From article, (Anyone who has visited SpaceX's rocket factory in Hawthorne, California, knows that the company has filled up its facilities with Falcon 9 first stages, payload fairings, and Dragon capsules. In the coming years, as the company transitions into manufacturing the Big Falcon Rocket, or BFR vehicle, it will need a lot more capacity.

A new document from the Port of Los Angeles indicates that the company is moving ahead with plans to build a "state-of-the-art" industrial manufacturing facility near Long Beach, about 20 miles south of its headquarters. The document summarizes an environmental study of the site for the port, on behalf of a proposed tenant—WW Marine Composites, LLC. This appears to be a subsidiary company of SpaceX.

The company seeks to use an 18-acre site at Berth 240 in the port "for the construction and operation of a facility to manufacture large commercial transportation vessels." Operations at the site would include "research and development of transportation vessels and would likely include general manufacturing procedures such as welding, composite curing, cleaning, painting, and assembly operations." Completed vessels would need to be transported by water due to their size, the document states, as a means to explain why the company needs a facility immediately adjacent to the water.

The document also noted that the 10-year lease, with up to two 10-year renewals, would "accommodate recovery operations undertaken by Space Exploration Technologies to bring to shore vehicles returning from space that are retrieved by an autonomous drone ship offshore." This would be for first-stage recoveries of the Falcon 9 rocket and probably payload fairings as well.

an independent source confirmed that this facility is, indeed, intended for the manufacture of the BFR rocket in Los Angeles. 

It is not clear when SpaceX would begin manufacturing vehicles in the new facilities.

Asked for comment, SpaceX spokeswoman Eva Behrend told Ars, "SpaceX is in preliminary discussions with the Port of LA about the potential of leasing additional land for operations.")

SpaceX sets a high goal of getting to Mars while Boeing wants to go first to the Moon to test out technology for Mars. Which way is better? (My Opinion): If we Shoot for Both Plans, There is a Greater Success of Getting Out to the Moon and Mars

SpaceX Sees Direct Route To Mars, Boeing Doesn't; Here's Why | Stock News & Stock Market Analysis - IBD

HOUSTON - While SpaceX is focused on going straight to Mars, Boeing ( BA) said a less direct route to the red planet would help build infrastructure for future missions, including commercial ones. SpaceX, started by Tesla ( TSLA) founder Elon Musk, is building its largest rocket to date, dubbed the BFR, to send humans to Mars and beyond.

From article, (While SpaceX is focused on going straight to Mars, Boeing (BA) said a less direct route to the red planet would help build infrastructure for future missions, including commercial ones.

00:04

SpaceX, started by Tesla (TSLA) founder Elon Musk, is building its largest rocket to date, dubbed the BFR, to send humans to Mars and beyond. Earlier this week, SpaceX Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said the rocket would be "orbital in 2020 or so" after "short hops" planned for next year. By 2022, SpaceX plans to send a cargo mission to Mars with crewed missions eventually following.

But the Trump administration is pushing for a return to the moon, with a lunar base, reversing the Obama administration's policies that focused on getting to Mars without landing on the moon.

NASA, which has contracted with Boeing to develop the Space Launch System deep-space rocket, determines federal space policy and has laid out a path to Mars that includes stops at the International Space Station and a lunar orbiter or base. The idea is that the ISS could be used to learn about long-duration human spaceflight, while the moon could be used to test new tools for Mars missions.

Matt Duggan, Boeing's deep-space exploration architect, said smaller steps would also leave behind infrastructure that commercial companies could use.

"If we go straight to Mars we run the risk of not having anything left over," he said in a recent interview at Boeing's facility near NASA's Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center.

The Apollo program was a stunning success but there wasn't any infrastructure left behind upon which to build for later missions further into space.

"The case for the moon is that it's partly about the resources," Duggan said. "It may make sense to make an investment there to start and get those resources. I also think that a moon base goes a lot further to enabling commercial participation in a Mars trip."

Right now there aren't many opportunities for commercial companies to earn money on a trip to Mars, besides getting paid by the government. Duggan said a focus on either a lunar orbital facility or lunar base could prompt science, cargo deliveries, resource mining and other commercial activity.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab has noted that the moon holds water that could support life and be converted to rocket fuel, helium-3 that could be used in nuclear fusion, and rare earth metals that could be used in a variety of commercial technologies.)

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At Least by 2030: Astronauts on the Moon. International Space Station Transferred to Commercial Interests.

NASA foresees human lunar landings by the late 2020s - SpaceNews.com

WASHINGTON - NASA's vision for lunar exploration includes landing astronauts, from NASA and its partners, on the surface of the moon by the late 2020s, the agency's acting administrator said Feb. 20.

  From article, (NASA’s vision for lunar exploration includes landing astronauts, from NASA and its partners, on the surface of the moon by the late 2020s, the agency’s acting administrator said Feb. 20.

Speaking at a Space Transportation Association breakfast, Robert Lightfoot described a 2030 vision for NASA and space activities enabled by the administration’s fiscal year 2019 budget request released last week, ranging from a “totally commercial environment” in low Earth orbit to exploration of the moon.

“At the moon, we’ll have people transiting from the platform back down to the surface of the moon,” he said. “We’ll have a constant set of flights going back and forth that will allow us to do the work that we want to do on the moon.”

The platform is the Lunar Orbiting Platform – Gateway, a human-tended facility in cislunar space formerly known as the Deep Space Gateway. That facility is one key element of the lunar exploration plans in the budget proposal, which calls for construction of an initial power and propulsion element that would be launched commercially in 2022.

Another element of the plan calls for continuing a set of funded agreements with industry known as Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships (NextSTEP) to study designs for a habitat module for the gateway. Several companies are currently working on habitat module designs under NextSTEP.

The budget also calls for a “series of more capable landers” for lunar missions, starting with small commercial landers. A call for proposals for an initial robotic lunar lander mission, based on responses to a past request for information, should be released in the near future, Lightfoot said.

Those initial small landers would be followed by larger missions, but how those evolve over time into spacecraft capable of carrying people to the lunar surface and back isn’t described in detail in the proposal. However, that broader lunar exploration effort is expected to leverage contributions from both commercial and international partners.

“What we’re looking for is the latter part of the decade for humans to the moon,” he said in response to an audience question about timelines. Asked if those people would be NASA astronauts or those from partner space agencies, he responded, “Yes.”

In his speech he discussed another element of that vision, transferring activities in low Earth orbit to the commercial sector. That includes ending NASA funding of International Space Station operations by the mid-2020s, while stimulating the development of commercial capabilities through a program that the budget proposal projects spending $900 million on over the next five years.

“Industry is ready. They feel like they’re ready to take that on,” Lightfoot said. “We need to get things on orbit that we can go to other than government-funded locations.”

Lightfoot said he’s also had “plenty of conversations” with the station’s international partners about the proposal. More are planned for the Second International Space Exploration Forum scheduled for March 3 in Tokyo. “I’ve got meetings with all our partners next week, individually,” he said. “They all understood where we were and what we were doing, but wanted to talk about it.”)

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Boston Solar Power? Yup.

If Solar Makes Sense in Snowy Boston, It Can Work Anywhere!

Clean Power Steve Rorem, a homeowner in Gardner, Massachusetts - 40 miles inland from snowy Boston in the Northeastern United States - was fed up with his high heating and electricity bills and looked to a rooftop system using LG's NeON Solar panels to save the day.

 From article, (Steve Rorem, a homeowner in Gardner, Massachusetts — 40 miles inland from snowy Boston in the Northeastern United States — was fed up with his high heating and electricity bills and looked to a rooftop system using LG’s NeON Solar panels to save the day.

Rorem estimates that adding solar panels to his home will slash the cost of heating and electricity for his home from more than $3,300 USD per year to down around $800. While the process and planning of the project were fun with the prospect of saving money hanging out as an exciting opportunity, they did run into several challenges to bringing the project from paper to reality, due to the location of the install.

The heat pump providing heating and cooling for his home was a power hog, but after running through the numbers, Steve was able to offset 76% of his electricity usage with a set of 35 panels. This installation is a perfect case study for how rooftop solar panels can make sense even in snowy, cold, northern cities that don’t enjoy as much sun as areas known for their sunshine like Hawaii or California.

First, while solar panels can turn any light into electricity regardless of the temperature outside, they also have to be able to physically stand up to the weather. That is both for the cold temperatures and for the massive amounts of snow that can pile up over the course of a series of nor’easters, like the four that have slammed the east coast of the United States this month.)

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Commercial Space Sector Courted by NASA to Produce New Landers for the Moon.

NASA courts commercial options for Lunar Landers

As NASA refocuses - once again - on returning to the Lunar surface, the agency has published a Request For Information (RFI) that will be used to gauge interest from the private/commercial space sector in building domestic lunar landers.

From article, (As NASA refocuses – once again – on returning to the Lunar surface, the agency has published a Request For Information (RFI) that will be used to gauge interest from the private/commercial space sector in building domestic lunar landers. The request points to an evolution of concept, with small-scale cargo landers being used to prove the technology before feeding into the development of human-rated vehicles.

The request outlines NASA’s aim to better determine the state-of-art and maturity of lander capability in the private sector and mature its own requirements for a human-class lander.

“NASA is seeking information under this RFI to assess commercial interest in development of domestic lunar lander capabilities that would evolve to meeting the identified performance towards human-class landers. These progressively larger lander capabilities are complementary to NASA’s new Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) effort to award contracts to provide capabilities as soon as 2019.”

CLPS will also support the delivery of small rovers and instruments to meet lunar science and exploration needs. NASA plans to release a Request for Proposals for CLPS in mid-2018 that is expected to fund payload opportunities on near-term commercial lunar landing opportunities.

The phased approach will result in a series of increasingly complex and capable lunar missions to the surface of the Moon, starting first with robotic missions. NASA added the initiative will be undertaken in coordination with scientific lunar exploration and will run in parallel to the development and flight of the SLS, Orion, and the elements of the Lunar Orbital Platform – Gateway.)

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India is Building a Solar Park that Will Produce 2,000 Megawatts. Enough to Power 700,000 Homes. 14 More Solar Parks Are on the Way.

The biggest solar parks in the world are now being built in India

Weeds poke listlessly from the flat, rocky earth as the temperature climbs to the mid-90s. On a cloudless March afternoon, the blue horizon stretches out uninterrupted, as if even birds are too weary to fly.

From article, (Weeds poke listlessly from the flat, rocky earth as the temperature climbs to the mid-90s. On a cloudless March afternoon, the blue horizon stretches out uninterrupted, as if even birds are too weary to fly.

On this unforgiving patch of southern India, millions of silver-gray panels glimmer in the sun, the start of what officials say will be the biggest solar power station in the world.

 When completed, the Pavagada solar park is expected to produce 2,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 700,000 households — and the latest milestone in India's transition to generating more green energy.

Long regarded as a laggard in the fight against climate change, India is building massive solar stations at a furious clip, helping to drive a global revolution in renewable energy and reduce its dependence on coal and other carbon-spewing fossil fuels blamed for warming the planet.

While the Trump administration abandons the Paris agreement on fighting climate change and pledges to revive the U.S. coal industry, India this month hosted the inaugural conference of the International Solar Alliance, an organization launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the aim of raising $1 trillion to promote solar generation and technology in 121 countries.

Thanks to low-cost solar panels and government incentives for renewable energy, India surged past Japan last year to become the world's third-biggest market for solar power, after China and the United States. Modi has called for generating 100 gigawatts of solar capacity by 2022 — nearly 30 times what it had three years ago, and equivalent to the entire energy output of Spain.

"It's pretty inspiring," said Tim Buckley, director of energy finance studies at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. "The U.S. and India have sort of swapped places, and Modi is now becoming a global statesman for renewable energy and solar."

India's need for green energy is obvious. With an economy expanding at roughly 7% annually, and ambitions to bring electricity to hundreds of millions of people who still lack it, India must pump up solar and wind power dramatically in order to meet its commitmentsunder the Paris agreement. Air pollution has worsened in its cities, partly because of emissions thrown up by old power plants.

Coal still accounts for 58% of India's power, while wind provides 10% and solar 5%, according to government figures. India had created 20 gigawatts of solar power at the end of December, nearly doubling its capacity from a year earlier.

Three years ago, California could lay claim to the world's biggest solar farm: the 579-megawatt Solar Star power station just north of Lancaster, in the Antelope Valley.

That station was soon eclipsed by a series of huge solar parks in China, the No. 1 producer of the photovoltaic panels that capture the sun's radiation for conversion into energy.

India has approved plans for 14 solar parks larger than Solar Star. Most lie in India's northern deserts and southern scrubland, where state and local authorities are racing to fulfill Modi's agenda and foreign companies are vying for pieces of perhaps the last great solar market.

"The potential of solar power in India is huge," said Sanjay Aggarwal, managing director of the Indian office of Fortum, a Finnish energy company that is generating 100 megawatts at Pavagada.)

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