ceramic fuel cells to sell up to 200, page-15

"We are confident that the German government will support the project ... We are also encouraged by the very strong interest in our low emission products in Germany"

Why can't Brendan Dow say the above and replace the word "Germany" for "Australia"? Probably for the same reasons that the Australian governemnt has cut funding to CSIRO yet again. Why does the genius of Australia have to be exploited overseas?

CFU have been absolutley correct in setting up shop in Europe where fuel-cell technology seems to be better understood and the real benefits appreciated and recognised as the way to go, in particular if you are after low carbon emmissions and maximum electrical efficiency.

This is a rant, I know, but cutting funding to institutions like the CSIRO willy nilly is so short sighted it can only be described as appaulling (CFU technology was originally spun out of CSIRO remember).

Apparently CSIRO will have to close down one of their astronomical observatories as a result of recent cuts. So what, you say, these people are just star gazing anyway, no big deal if they shut them down? How many astronomers do we need anyway, right?

WiFi technology, no doubt commonly used by all of us on this thread, was actually developed by an astronomer at CSIRO. He was tackling the problem of decifering incoming cosmic radiations from celestial bodies to track them or something and developed a set of mathematical equations which underpin how WiFi works. His name is Dr John O'Sullivan.

Governments cutting funding to basic research is always a mistake in my view, virtually all game changing innovation has come out of stuff discovered doing basic research that no company listed on the ASX would ever dream of doing.

I'll stop my rant here.