As societies turn away from fossil fuels towards renewables will the dark carbon gods of coal and oil give way to mankind's original gods of sun, wind and water? Will we see a shift in cultural practice?
Already, we see beauty in solar installations like Gemasolar, near Seville in Spain, where the layout of the mirror array is guided by the patterns of seeds in sunflower heads.
And wind generators are entering beauty contests.
New technology can be very techie, but as I have discussed, renewables are very lovable.
What's not to love in this new farming system that uses solar power to desalinate water and produce greenhouse crops in the desert. Sundrop Farms have developed the technology that uses trough mirrors to heat oil that boils sea water to run turbines to generate electricity. It also desalinates the water. The electricity, heat and water are used in greenhouses to grow vegetables. In 2010-2011 Sundrop trialed the high-tech system in the desert near Port Augusta. The trials went very well and in 2012 they will expand to have 8 hectares under greenhouses.
You can take a site visit –
The cool language of technology needs to meet the life-affirming language of love. Surely the capacity to grow nourishing food in the desert is nothing short of miraculous?
Where is our sense of wonder? Apollo and Neptune have joined forces to grow tomatoes in the desert of South Australia.
Such gorgeous photos! Flipping through the windmill photos, one after another, left me feeling hopeful.
ReplyDeleteTheir beauty may have more to do with their meaning than their shapes and lines.
They provide a glimpse into a what secure, sustainable, bountiful future might look like.
Amazing imagery. Reason for hope indeed. What we need now is for the peddlers of fossil fuel lobby propaganda to stop making insanely disingenuous remarks like... "Renewable energy is not sustainable if it can only prosper by being subsidised". Even if you paid the best satirist to do it, I doubt they could invert reality as succinctly as that...
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