This week, Virginia reports on Perth Zoo going solar, solar staving off electricity infrastructure expenditure, renewables the key to a low carbon future and the water footprint of coal vs solar.
Perth Zoo now boasts the city’s largest solar panel installation.
While the Carbon Capture and Storage boffins struggle to make CCS commercially viable and environmentally safe – the key to a low carbon energy future is already here.
The prediction of solar power helping to delay or reduce electricity transmission infrastructure investment is a reality.
It takes a lot of water to generate electricity using coal – and gas or nuclear power too – many times the amount required by wind or solar power.
Solar panels have a very long lifespan, with some installed in the 1980’s still cranking significant quantities of clean electricity – but this durability comes at a financial cost.
As plentiful as Australia’s solar resources may be and as much as Australians may want a clean energy future with solar power as the centerpiece, we’re still not anywhere close to tapping into even a small percentage of our sun-kissed potential.
The carbon tax is here and the Government is continuing to operate in promote and defend mode. But it may want to be careful in how it fends off attacks from the Opposition; lest it raises the ire of solar-supporting voters.
We’ve covered paint-on solar cells previously – now boffins at Rice University have created spray-on batteries; a development that could revolutionise the battery industry.
Of all the most ambitious renewable energy projects around the world, the European Desertec Industrial Initiative ranks right at the top- some would say fantastic in both the true and the modern sense of the word.
