Green Options

Australian musician Ben Lee brilliantly weaves daunting issues such as the global water crisis, religious intolerance, hunger, renewable energy and climate change into this catchy pop song. Lee has also been named one of PETA’s world’s sexiest vegetarians.

Australian researchers have figured out a cool new way to tackle the threat of global warming, by setting up a network of ‘talking’ fridges.

But wait, the idea isn’t as crazy as it might sound. The fridges feature cutting-edge technology enabling them to communicate with each other via a network to share and store energy from renewable energy sources such as solar panels or wind turbines.

According to inventor, Sam West, “The fridges are designed to talk to each other, negotiating when it’s a good time to consume electricity and when it’s better not to.”

Anti-whaling activists aboard the Sea Shepherd vessel ‘Steve Irwin’ have covered a whaling ship with a smelly cocktail of rotten butter, methyl cellulose and indelible dye.

The unconventional sliming operation was carried out in a bid to intimidate the Japanese whaler, Kaiko Maru, into moving out of Australian Antarctic territorial waters. According to Peter Hammarstedt, the Sea Shepherd’s second officer, “this is one stinky, slippery ship.”

Scientists at the University of New South Wales have set a new world record by creating the first silicon solar cell to achieve 25% efficiency.

Team leader, Prof. Martin Green of the university’s ARC Photovoltaic Centre of Excellence, says their world-beating solar cell is now a massive six percent more efficient than the next best technology. The record edges the current generation of solar cell technology closer to the theoretical limit of 29% efficiency.

The Australian government has given the green light to a plan to establish one of the world’s largest electric car recharging infrastructures, powered entirely by renewable energy.

An Australian scientist has developed a new method of manufacturing solar cells using nothing more than some nail polish remover, a pizza oven and a standard inkjet printer.

The iJET technique is so easy and cheap to carry out that it could revolutionize access to solar technology in the developing world.

In a recent radio interview (audio), Nicole Kuepper, a 23 year-old PhD student at the University of New South Wales, explained the process.

Australian wave power generators inspired by nature’s know-how are meeting their development goals and have the potential to leave other renewable power sources in their wake.

Biopower Systems is just one of the wave-energy developers gaining attention by meeting its technological goals and backing this up with investment support.