Light recycling finds green role for fossil fuels

Energy researchers warn the world has only a generation to cut its consumption of fossil fuels or lose the opportunity to use them to develop green energy for electricity generation and avoid returning to a more energy primitive era.

Maligned as agents of environmental doom, fossil fuels could save the world as they are the core material for smart plastics that farm and recycle light into electricity.

But as Professor Paul Burn from the Centre for Organic Photonics and Electronics at The University of Queensland (Australia) told John Austin, the window of opportunity is closing.

Duration: 3.45

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• recycling
• photonics
• light
• fossil-fuels
• environment
• research
• green
• plastics
• Paul-Burn
• electronics