A-Power Energy Generation Systems Ltd., the largest provider of distributed power generation systems in China, announced today a $90.5 million contract to develop a 49.5 Megawatt wind farm in the township of Saiwusu, Guba County in Inner Mongolia. The project, the Saiwusu Wind Farm, is for the Jihe Orient Wind Energy Company Ltd., and calls for A-Power to supply the wind turbines, towers, and foundations, as well as oversee all construction, subcontracting, and installation.

Equipment procurement alone is expected to be $84.2 million, with construction and installation another $4.8 million, and miscellaneous costs adding $1.5 million. The project is due to begin in early October, with completion planned for June of 2010.

Inner Mongolia is actually a Chinese province in northern China, on China’s border with the Mongolian People’s Republic. It’s basically an inland plateau, consisting largely of vast flat prairie grasslands, conducive to wind power generation.

Mr. Jinxiang Lu,

Kazakhstan was once a nation of nomads wandering vast steppes. They herded cattle, goats and camels. On the country’s western edge lies the Caspian Sea. Towns grew up along the shore there, hauling in catches of sturgeon and black caviar.

But otherwise, Kazakhstan was an empty desert. Even in the days of the old Silk Road, traders would skirt Kazakhstan’s southern border rather than try to cross that hell of a desert. It was remote. Desolate. The Soviets used parts of the northeast to test nuclear weapons.

The Aral Sea, site of one of the greatest environmental disasters ever, is in Kazakhstan. A century ago, carp, perch, caviar-bloated sturgeon and much more filled the Aral Sea. Fisherman hauled hundreds of tons of fish per year, fed themselves and loaded trains full of fish headed to Moscow. Then the Communists had some harebrained scheme to use the water for irrigation.