In my latest piece for the Weather Channel, I spoke with the folks at the Anglo-American Mining Company in Chile, who have created one of the first major commercial floatovoltaic energy systems on one of their mining tailing ponds. What this essentially means is that they’ve floated a bunch of arrays of solar panels onto the semi-toxic water residue from their mine. The water actually helps to make the solar panels more efficient, and the solar panels help to re-purpose the otherwise-wasted space from the mine tailing pond.
It’s actually some pretty fascinating, forward-thinking science, and I’m really glad to have learned about it. Maybe you’ll be into it, too!