Sundrop Farms is a developer, owner and operator of high tech greenhouse facilities which use a number of technology solutions to grow crops with less dependence on finite natural resources than conventional greenhouse production. Sundrop Farms opened its first pilot facility in Port Augusta, South Australia, in 2010 (operating as Seawater Greenhouse Australia Pty Ltd). This facility was originally designed as a Seawater Greenhouse. However, significant technology changes led to the Sundrop System, and the dissolution of the joint venture with Seawater Greenhouse Ltd. Sundrop Farms commissioned an expanded 20-hectare facility south of Port Augusta in 2016. Sundrop Farms has offices in London, UK and Adelaide, Australia.
 The primary inputs to a greenhouse are heat, electricity, water, and nutrients. The Sundrop System is a collection of technologies which, when used in combination, reduce the need for finite resources in these inputs when compared with conventional greenhouse production. In Sundrop Farms’ first facilities in South Australia, these technologies include concentrated solar power, thermal desalination, and steam-driven electricity generation. This is the first combined heat, power, and water system powered by solar energy for greenhouse production.
 As of 2015, Sundrop Farms is constructing a 20-hectare solar-powered greenhouse facility near its original site, south of Port Augusta in South Australia. This facility, scheduled for completion in 2016, is expected to produce 15,000 tons of truss tomatoes (on the vine) each year to supply the Australian supermarket operator Coles under a ten-year contract. Sundrop Farms operations will be primarily powered by a new concentrated solar thermal power plant and seawater will be withdrawn from Spencer Gulf and desalinated to feed produce. The project was expected to generate around 100 jobs during the construction of the greenhouse facility (underway as of October 2015) and approximately 200 jobs once operational. In 2014, private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts invested million in the company. The development has been supported by the Government of South Australia which has provided approximately million in grant funding. A million development contract was awarded to John Holland in 2014 to construct the expanded facility over an 18–24 month time-frame and the total project cost is an estimated million. The million, highly productive “farm” opened in June 2016 and is now producing 10–15 per cent of Australia’s truss tomatoes.
 Sundrop Farms’ 20-hectare expanded facility is powered by an Integrated Energy System based on the concentrated solar power (CSP) technology. The system is designed and delivered by Danish renewable energy specialist, Aalborg CSP, and it is the first large-scale CSP-based technology in the world to provide multiple energy streams – heating, fresh water and electricity – for horticultural activities. The 51,500 m2 solar field comprises eSolar’s Solar Collector System. Commissioned in October 2016, the facility’s concentrated solar thermal plant peak heat production rate is 39 MW, and desalinates water while producing 1.5 MW of electricity.
 Sundrop Farms’ original pilot facility desalinated seawater but did not return waste brine to Spencer Gulf. The brine was collected in ponds from which salt could be harvested. The company’s brine management plan changed with its 20-hectare expansion in 2014. Sundrop Farms sought and received approval from the South Australian Environment Protection Authority to discharge waste brine into Spencer Gulf at a salinity of 60 parts per thousand. The expanded facility discharged its brine into the cooling water outflow channel at the existing coal-fired Port Augusta power stations. Environmental approval from the Commonwealth Government via referral under the EPBC Act was neither required nor sought by Sundrop Farms for this project. Sundrop Farms continues to investigate commercially effective solutions for the recovery of minerals from brine at a large scale.

(A)

Michael Faraday: Faraday’s earliest science position was an assistant to Humphry Davy who was also a science enthusiast. Faraday was involved in the analysis of chlorine. He also carried out rough experiments on the diffusion of gases. In addition, he created an early form of what is the now called the Bunsen burner. He worked comprehensively in chemistry; he discovered chemicals like benzene and discovered that chlorine could be turned into a liquid.
 He was appointed the first-ever Fullerian Professor in Chemistry in the year 1833. He started to work on electromagnetism, which is what he is best known for, in 1821. He created devices that produced electromagnetic rotations. These developments led to the invention of the electric motor. Ten years later, Michael perceived that passing of current through a copper wire coil that was wrapped around iron caused current to be induced in the adjacent coil. In this way, he invented the very first transformer.

(B)

Nikola Tesla: Even as a student Tesla was inventive. He created a motor that did not need a commutator to function. A commutator is a device that switches the direction of a current in some generators or motors that run on electricity. Tesla invented a motor with coils that were arranged so that when alternating current energized them they cast a magnetic field that rotated at a predetermined speed. Tesla patented this rotating field motor in 1888. Fortunately, he was able to sell it at a time when the advocates of alternating current were in the market for such a motor. Tesla sold his patent to George Westinghouse.
 Tesla also made advances with frequency apparatuses and high voltage. He invented the Tesla coil, a system of arc lighting, a generator for high frequency currents, a system for wireless transmission and a high potential magnifying transmitter. The magnifying transmitter was a machine that could produce millions of electrical volts that manifested in long, spectacular arcs. Tesla formed his own company not long after leaving Edison with money from several investors. He held at least 278 patents.

(C)

William Thomson (Lord Kelvin): Thomson entered Cambridge University in 1841 where he enjoyed an active life as a student. He participated in many activities, but science was his great love. He graduated four years later. He was a Second Wrangler, which was the second highest ranked undergraduate degree in maths. He was also named a fellow of his house and worked in the laboratory of the famous scientist, Henri Regnault, in Paris. At around this same time, the University of Glasgow elevated Thomson to the chair of natural philosophy. He was only 22 years old.
 Lord Kelvin invented the mirror galvanometer used in cable signalling and the siphon recorder, which was used to receive the signals. An avid seaman, he invented the first ship’s compass that was free of the magnetic influence of any iron on the ship. He also invented a mechanism that predicted the tide. This was useful to predict the variations in sea level in any port. He suggested that gas thermometers be used for accurate temperature readings, and a thermometer scale is named after him. On the Kelvin thermometer scale, absolute zero is equal to − 273 degrees Celsius. Absolute zero is where molecular movement ceases.

(D)

James Chadwick: While at the university’s department of physics, Chadwick became acquainted with scientists of the caliber of Hans Geiger and Niels Bohr, among the foremost physicists of their day. He spent his time developing the planetary theory of the atom, and had achieved a Master’s degree by 1913. For his work, he was given the Exhibition Scholarship, which had been set up after the Great Exhibition of 1851.
 Chadwick used these funds that this brought to go to study in Germany at the country’s first specialized research institution near Berlin. Here, Geiger was his ultimate superior, an arrangement which suited Chadwick very well. His own research brought advances such as knowledge of the energy range of beta particles, something which Wolfgang Pauli later used to help develop his own theory that the particle, now known as the neutrino, must exist.