Renewable energy hope

Launceston Examiner
Friday 9/3/2007 Page: 20

Solar energy scientists have put the case for greater emphasis on emerging renewable technologies, saying their rapid expansion in the world means they could become serious contributors to electricity needs. The Australian National University College of Engineering and Computer Science's Keith Lovegrove and Klaus Weber shared the stage with nuclear energy figure Ziggy Switkowski at a forum yesterday on a sustainable energy future.

Dr Lovegrove works on solar systems, developing mirror panels and other components for mass production and thermochemical storage of solar energy using ammonia. Dr Weber is coinventor of sliver solar cell technology. Dr Lovegrove said wind energy was already the biggest player in the renewable technology field in some parts of the world and had the potential to greatly contribute to future energy requirements.

"We've had two decades of 30 per cent per annum growth and it's reached the point now where wind turbines are getting installed at about 10 or more coalfired peak power stations worth of wind turbines a year," he said. "As a global player, that still makes it very small, but if you keep adding 30 per cent per annum's growth on something that is already that big, actually you can roll things out pretty fast."