OK, so we’re the first to sit and wonder why the world of renewable energy hasn’t come on in leaps and bounds. The truth of the matter is turning ideas into money are more difficult when creating stuff like solar panels and wind turbines than creating the latest killer touch screen tablet. However, you can generally rely on the Norwegians to improve matters for the rest of the world in this respect – they are the front runners in everything from solar power to poo power.
EnSol is one of the companies that helps them retain that rather dubious accolade and they’ve done it again by apparently producing and creating a spray on film that will turn virtually any surface into a solar panel. It uses that technology that makes us drool every time we hear it; nanotechnology. Nanoparticles embed into a transparent composite matrix (that sentence alone is enough to make us weep with joy) apparently and the spray has a multitude of possible settings.
The days of bulky solar PV tiles would be all but gone, replaced by virtually invisible solar “cells” sprayed onto the outside of buildings, the surface of standard roof tiles, and just about anything. You could spray the roof of the car and do away with the problem of having to find a recharging station every 8.23 miles.
Again, we head to Norway, but this time a company called StatOil has created and successfully tested a floating wind turbine. It’s called the Hywind turbine and following narly a year of successful testing, the company now plans to install a whole windfarm of these (not so) little beauties. The ability to float turbines easily and efficiently would make it considerably easier to find viable wind farm placements – phew, we hear you cry.
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Know of any other renewable energy tech?
