Across the border in China's province of Inner Mongolia, a great amount of state-owned cashmere-processing capacity stands empty.

ECONOMIST: But promise to be very different this time

These huge, sky-blackening dust storms sweep across Asia in March and April, bringing with them millions of tons of sand from inner Mongolia and depositing it in China and on across the Korean peninsula to Japan.

CNN: Desertification: How to stop the shifting sands

Wind power is also being experimented with in a small way for power generation in northern and western China, where it could supply electricity to rural villages in windswept and increasingly arid Inner Mongolia and Gansu Province that are still not on the grid.

FORBES: Pollution And Prosperity

The deal with Zhenfa will give First Solar a landing opportunity in China, which the company tried to tackle when it signed agreements in 2009 for a 2-gigawtt plan in Inner Mongolia.

FORBES: First Solar, SunPower Ink Major Deals In China