The vast majority of technological progress effects our above-ground environs. Which makes sense, because that’s where we live. And the great bulk of tech innovation these days is a mad dash to improve our relationship with the environment we routinely experience.But that leaves out a lot of stuff. For Americans, for example, that means space—our increasingly neglected space program is sadly (and erroneously) no longer considered to have much of a tangible, immediate benefit to the economy of our daily lives. So out it fades.It also means we haven’t turned our tech guns towards the ocean. Not in full force, anyway. Sure, we have submarines and deep sea research vessels and some pollution-swabbing mechanical fish. But we’ve really only scratched the surface, to unleash a truly awful metaphor (the other option was ‘tip of the iceberg’, so, hey). Water does cover some 70 percent of the Earth’s surface, after all. And we still don’t understand a whole lot about the deep, and, comparatively, we don’t have a whole lot of toys designed to help us learn more or improve our human-underwater experience either.Part of the reason why is lack of demand, sure. But part of the reason has been steep, prohibitive technological barriers: like energy consumption. The only way to power a device or a vehicle underwater right now is to use a battery or wire the energy in from land (or use a nuclear core). And replacing and recharging underwater batteries and maintaining waterlogged infrastructure is tough and expensive. So it was interesting to hear that the US Naval Research Laboratory is developing technology to make underwater solar power viable.From the NRL:Underwater autonomous systems and sensor platforms are severely limited by the lack of long endurance power sources. To date, these systems must rely on on-shore power, batteries or solar power supplied by an above water platform. Attempts to use photovoltaics have had limited success, primarily due to the lack of penetrating sunlight and the use of solar cells optimized more towards the unimpeded terrestrial solar spectrum.
“The use of autonomous systems to provide situational awareness and long-term environment monitoring underwater is increasing,’ said Phillip Jenkins, head, NRL Imagers and Detectors Section. “Although water absorbs sunlight, the technical challenge is to develop a solar cell that can efficiently convert these underwater photons to electricity.”They think they can make new kinds of solar panels that are effective at around 30 ft underwater. Which would be a major breakthrough. It could lead to better pollution monitoring systems, underwater observational devices, and so on. It would be a major step towards breaking the tech barrier to undersea environs—if we even want it to. Maybe it’ll just give rise to the age of the solar-powered corporate underwater mining operations and the automated whale-harpoon turret. Who knows, but hopefully underwater solar shows promise.
Advertisement