Fricken solar powered paint!
Dr Torben Daeneke and colleagues from RMIT have developed paint that can absorb solar light and convert it into solar fuels which can be transformed into electricity.
You can watch how it works here.
This is very exciting stuff.
I’m a strong admirer of the work of Carlota Perez and her insistence that the next techno-economic paradigm will be a version of ‘high tech-green’, and distributed in ways that avoid the bottlenecks and failure points of hierarchical systems.
Examples of innovation like this paint, when coupled with mass distribution of batteries help demonstrate just how different our systems of energy capture, storage and use are likely to be in the coming years. We increasingly have the ability to build physical infrastructure that better represents the designs of natural systems.
I wonder how the major paint and coating companies in the world are thinking about this, I hope they’re considering partnerships with Tesla and other battery storage providers and helping design whatever interface is needed to transfer the hydrogen into fuel storage packs and electricity.
This is also an example of the fascinating challenges of retrofitting our existing systems of infrastructure for the next economy. I wonder what process could best facilitate the mass repainting of existing buildings.