Artificial coral reefs use solar panels to grow

And just like the rest of the environment around us, the world’s coral reefs are in trouble too, facing environmental harm climate-change, localized over-fishing and habitat destruction. And as we all know, replacing these naturally isn’t really an option, so researchers these days are looking forward to use electrified artificial reefs instead, called Biorocks. These start off as a electrically-conductive wire mesh called the Coral Ark attached to the seabed with a solar panel floating on the surface above. The electricity collected by the solar panels results in accretion coating the Ark with a natural concrete material very similar to that of clam shells. With this, these artificial reefs can grow at a rate of 5cm annually and can grow indefinitely!

And with this, we as human beings have finally learnt to give back to nature a fraction of what we’ve taken all along!

[Gizmodo]