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The electric vehicle manufacturer and clean energy company Tesla has begun laying the groundwork for a $10 billion solar energy manufacturing facility near Houston, Texas. Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirmed the project with a post on X , dubbing the initiative "Project Crystal Sun." This comes in the wake of SpaceX — another of the companies owned by Elon Musk — ordering 100 gigawatts (GW) of solar production equipment from German equipment maker Singulus Technologies (via Interesting Engineering ). Putting two and two together, one could speculate that the Houston facility could ultimately give U.S. solar production a 100 GW boost.

The Project Crystal Sun plant will reportedly produce all manner of solar equipment, from component parts to finished solar cells and panels. However, the manufacturing stage may only be one small part of Musk's Project Crystal Sun.…