Solar: Harvesting the sun

In Niger’s eastern region of Diffa in the south of the Ténéré Desert — a vast sandy area across Niger and Chad up in the Sahara desert — are the ruins of a century-old colonial fort. The area around it, an oasis called Agadem, is one of the sunniest spots on earth, behind only a patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii and Kiribati Island, according to the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).