Picture this. Cairns. 134 or so people sitting in a conference room. The Australasian Rotational Moulders Association. There's an almost equal mix of suppliers to the industry as the business owners.
Rotational Moulding is a manufacturing process of spinning plastic that requires heavy investment in land (for the plant and storage); equipment which can run into the millions; heavy energy use - heating the moulds to melt the plastic then cooling it. Heavy transportation costs to get the goods to market or the distributors.
So there we were, watching a video presentation by an American firm on a new solar powered rotational process. It uses thousands of little mirrors on a computer operated dish that focuses the energy into a direct beam and turns with the sun to generate the heat required to melt the plastic. When it's time to cool the mould, the mirrors are simply turned.
Because the sun is harnessed and the rotating mirrors are small in size, one can completely set up a mobile plant in the correct sunny location requiring little more than a truck to ship in a couple of containers. And a generator I imagine to power the computers to run the mirrors and the rotating mould.
Aside from the obvious questions - such as what happens when it rains or if that 'sun don't shine'; I thought to myself, these machinery suppliers sitting in this room must be having a heart attack. If this new technological process is successful and catches on, it could erode a significant part of their business. There would be some moulders in the room thinking how they could get to remote clients, save on carbon tax and liquidate some of their infrastructure assets.
