A couple of energy related links this morning. First there's progress on plastic solar panels, which are cheaper and easier to produce, but not yet as efficient as traditional panels. Reading the article they suggest that this could lead to wearable solar panels...why do tech articles these days all digress into trying to slap things on your body? Let's get every rooftop in the southwest covered or made out of solar panels and then worry about solar powered underwear. ":^)

The other news comes from the UK on harnessing ttidal power. Actually there's quite a few companies working on this. Here's more information on some of the approaches. They don't cover one of the more recent ones, which is using air instead of water to drive the turbines. A sloping "chamber" is located on the oceans edge, all or mostly underwater. As waves move in and back it compresses and expands the air in the chamber, forcing the air through large wind turbines located outside the water.

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