A Sunburnt Country’s Embarrassment of Energy Riches
by Warren McLaren, Sydney 
on 11.29.07
We've mentioned before that Australia’s cup runneth over when it comes to energy sources. The world's largest uranium reserves (40%), and the world's largest coal exporter (30%). But now the good news. A 2001 CSIRO study apparently found that Australia had the highest average solar radiation of any continent. A finding reinforced by a solar map (above) recently released by NASA, from research complied in conjunction with SoDa (Services for Professionals in Solar Energy and Radiation).
The map shows irradiance that reached the ground in the world, for the years 1990 to 2004, and expressed in W/m² (watts per square metre). The dark red spots getting the highest degree of solar energy. Looking at the map you’d have to wonder why Australia seems so intent on digging stuff outta the ground, at great expense, when it's falling from the sky in bucketloads? Via ::The Age.
“I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of rugged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rain”
Excerpt from a 1904 poem about Australia, by Dorothy McKeller.
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Australia needs more Solar + Sea Water for making hydrogen sequestration.
Splitting salt makes for Sodium and Chlorine, then the water Oxygen and Hydrogen.
Seems all the building blocks are there for making complex molecules, that can be stored & shipped worldwide, that will release energy in a chemical reaction with harmless gases.
Use the solar panels for the electricity, mirror systems for heat as the main catalyst.
Other places are Hawaii and Greenland for geothermal + seawater, same process.
Sodium Chlorate from Seawater.
Water (H2O) + Salt (NaCl)
H2O + NaCl, solar energery, = NaClO3
When NaClO3 burns, it releases 2NaCl (salt) + 3x O2
The leftover Hydrogen Gas, from the manufacturing process, is an added benefit.
http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_chlorine/science_sec.asp?CID=1708&DID=6370&CTYPEID=113
Why? Because shovels are cheaper than PVs, that's why.
The Australian Bureau of Meterology tracks this stuff too and has graphs depicting monthly and annual exposures.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/cgi_bin_scripts/solar-radiation.cgi
Surely if the ocean is producing about 80% of the planet's oxygen we ought to be thinking a little more carefully before interfering with it, Mark?
But yeah, we really should have been developing solar decades ago instead of sticking with the coal industry's choke hold on energy and government.