April 23 - sunny money

I watched Catalyst this evening and one of the articles was about the use of polymer panels for solar generation.

Polymer bank notes are an Australian invention and we now print polymer notes for 26 countries. The scientists at the manufacturing facility that prints the notes have been working on a polymer panel that can be used to generate solar electricity.

The current technology for solar electricity generation is expensive, which makes the payback period for a new system very long and often uneconomical. The polymer sheets are not very efficient at this stage but because they are inexpensive and flexible they can be used in a larger variety of locations. For example, you can afford to cover an entire roof with them.

Dr Gerry Wilson says "If the world had about six one hundred kilometre by one hundred kilometre grids of ten percent efficient solar cells scattered around the world, we would be able to satisfy the world's current energy needs. These plastic solar cells, we’re not restricted necessarily to put them on land. We could use them to cover our dams to stop evaporation. We could use them in the ocean."

Mark Horstman says "If this high speed printer was printing solar cells, it could do around 200 metres every minute, or 100 kilometres every day. At that rate, in just two months, it could print more generating capacity than a coal-fired power station. And that’s got to be a licence to print money. Here at Securency, they’re rolling out their first proofs of polymer solar cells – six months ahead of schedule, and just in time for a clean energy future."

You can read more about it here http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2550612.htm

February 25 - Argo floats

I was watching Catalyst on ABC TV and learned about these cool robots that monitor the conditions at the bottom of the world's oceans. They're called Argo floats and the transcript from the Catalyst website explains them thus -

"Humans have been weather forecasting for thousands of years. But the ocean also plays a huge role in our climate patterns and until now the processes that go on beneath the surface have been largely a mystery. But that mystery is being slowly revealed. Ten years ago Australia released the first Argo floats into the Indian Ocean. These nautical robots dive up to two kilometres every ten days and surface to transmit their precious measurements to Argo headquarters. Twenty countries maintain the global armada of more than 3000 Argo floats... and they're providing oceanographers with an unprecedented wealth of data from deep beneath the sea."

Isn't technology wonderful?