ABSTRACT:
Scientists at the Australian National University in Canberra have developed the world's first system of storing huge quantities of solar energy for commercial use. Officials at the university claimed yesterday that the breakthrough put Australia years ahead of the rest of the world in solar-energy research. The discovery has brought dramatically closer the day when whole towns can be powered by solar energy, eliminating the need for nuclear power. Scientists involved in the project said they had developed the only system in the world capable of short or long-term storage of solar on a mass scale. The head of the ANU Department of Engineering PJ1ysics, Professor Stephen Kaneff, said the discovery was ahead of American experiments. The ANU system Is based on the extraction of heat from the sun using a heat-absorbing chemical reaction the decomposition of ammonia into nitrogen and hydrogen."