Government Funds Artificial Photosynthesis Hub

[fayzaan]

[citation][nom]Gin Fushicho[/nom]Finally! Clean free energy! Hopefully.[/citation]

Its all lies!! LIES I TELL U!!!

 

[rambo117]

Hmmm.. Energy from the sun.. I think I've heard of this before, whats it called? Oh, solar power!!
/sarcasm

This seems like a sure way to keep the environmentalist off your back, finally. Here's an outlook of the critique of power sources:

Nuclear power: waste production, radiation
Dams/hydro power: Killing our fish (oh my..)
Wind power: dangerous spinning blades, could hurt our birds
Solar power: Too expensive as a mass energy source.

Am I missing any..? I left out Fossil Fuel, as that one is a little too easy for environmentalists.

 

[insider3]

I'll believe it when I see it.

 

[ooo]

Well is not easy cuz photosynthesis happens in two places at once in the leaves, how? cuz nature finds out the answer through quantum physics, the leaves absorb the energy in two places at onces like with quantic particles, and therefore is very hard to now how this could happens...i hope they crack it...cuz once you want to calculate quantic particles they tend to gives impossible results to measure...

 

[sviola]

[citation][nom]annymmo[/nom]In the long run, they could be making the building blocks of plastics with something like this. That would relieve us of our dependency on fossil fuels. Makes plastics available unlimited. Same with gasoline, imagine being able to set solar panels that convert the air and water into gasoline, petrol, hydrogen, fuel.This is big, very big. Hope they will be able to pull it off.[/citation]

You know that plastic is made from petrol right?

 

[Camikazi]

[citation][nom]matt87_50[/nom]so like.. Tree 2.0? would be cool to have trees with power points!good to see the U.S. putting their mighty weight behind these things, like the battery research too. GG U.S.[/citation]
Yes trees with outlets! want to go to the park and watch a movie on your laptop but the battery is low? Just plug in to the closest tree and have at it! Now to integrate WiFi into these trees and make a HUGE tree network!

 

[crossbow82]

That'll be cool if it works. But initially when I saw that pic, I thought it was a B&W shot of SimCity 4 gone crazy hehe

 

[maestintaolius]

[citation][nom]Abrahm[/nom]Actually, that's not necessarily the case. Plants generally only have an energy conversion efficiency of around 3-6%.[/citation]
You are correct for conversion to biomass (i.e. plant growth). That number also takes into account metabolic usage by the plant. Chlorophyll itself converts about 30% of the collected light into usable energy, the glucose building and consumption process' inefficiencies and plant metabolic needs reduce it to 3-6% net gain. It gets even worse when you try to convert that biomass into energy (e.g. bio-diesel), it ends up reducing it to around 0.3% efficiency. If we can remove the 'plant' part (so to speak) from the bio-fuel process it could go a long way towards improving the process.

By comparison, current semiconductor based transistors have lab efficiencies of 45% or so with multiple junction units under ideal and controlled conditions. However, once you put them in the field, they tend to drop to 8-12% (heating being one of the problems), and that's only for conversion to electricity. Trying to convert that to transportable power (bio-fuel or battery) reduces the efficiency even further.

 

[Timberwolf_CLT]

What would be outstanding is to couple an installation of this technology with existing combustion power plants.

Reduce the carbon emissions from the power plants and produce products that aren't dependent upon petroleum.

Similar projects are being investigated using algae culture technology.

 

[joebob2000]

[citation][nom]vir_cotto[/nom]The NFL running back doesn't get paid by the government, he gets paid because most everyone in the US loves football. If everyone wasn't spending money on football in the US he wouldn't get paid that much.[/citation]

Too true, if only there were long term investment markets that people could buy into as opposed to only being concerned with quarterly earnings and 401k return percentages...

It's sad that people will pay $80 to sit in a seat and watch a football game a few times a year, but would never bother donating to/investing in long term research projects like these, without the government stepping in and funding them through taxes. Face it, if it weren't for the government (and i am a small government nut, don't get me wrong) we would be stuck in the 1800s, technologically speaking.

 

[JJBB]

Every technology we use today, is rooted in some invention made by some guy in a barn 60-200 years ago. His experiments were self-funded and involved one or two assistants.

Nowadays, we spend $122,000,000 to build a barn for 180 people to sit around and publish papers on theoretical technologies that, if developed by said bums, would take 35 years of research to be viable back in the world of 2010.

It kills me how these inefficient organizations are the new face of efficiency these days.

Pax

 

[doive1231]

A further excuse for university professors to blank their students.

 

[power hungry]

So, if an excess of CO2 is thought (not yet proven) to cause global warming, what do you think consuming the amounts of CO2 required to power our civilization would do? Theoretical ice age? Desertification of seas and barren oceans due to the death of all plant life and plankton? Would this not be exchanging one potential problem with several others?

 

[hemburger]

Amazing!

 

[hemburger]

[citation][nom]power hungry[/nom]So, if an excess of CO2 is thought (not yet proven) to cause global warming, what do you think consuming the amounts of CO2 required to power our civilization would do? Theoretical ice age? Desertification of seas and barren oceans due to the death of all plant life and plankton? Would this not be exchanging one potential problem with several others?[/citation]
I know it's logical to look at both sides of the argument... but this one is a no brainer mate

 

[blackbeastofaaaaagh]

So, if an excess of CO2 is thought (not yet proven) to cause global warming, what do you think consuming the amounts of CO2 required to power our civilization would do? Theoretical ice age? Desertification of seas and barren oceans due to the death of all plant life and plankton? Would this not be exchanging one potential problem with several others?

Well, you are using the the CO2 to make fuel. That fuel will eventually be burned for power. So in the end, you end up with the same amount of C02 in the air.

 

[mikem_90]

[citation][nom]power hungry[/nom]So, if an excess of CO2 is thought (not yet proven) to cause global warming, what do you think consuming the amounts of CO2 required to power our civilization would do? Theoretical ice age? Desertification of seas and barren oceans due to the death of all plant life and plankton? Would this not be exchanging one potential problem with several others?[/citation]

Science doesn't do Proofs, that's the math department. Science tries to explain why something happens and narrows the possibilities of it being something else. Even centuries later we have not proven absolutely a model that exactly shows gravity in its entirety. We have a very good estimate, but there are places where we just don't know what is happening.

Offhand jabs at Climate science like that only show a lack of understanding of science.

Please educate yourself: http://www.holycross.edu/departments/biology/kprestwi/behavior/e&be_notes/E&BE_04_Sci_Meth&Philo.pdf

 

[mikem_90]

Okay, links to educational PDF articles bad. No problem...

 

[power hungry]

[citation][nom]mikem_90[/nom]Science doesn't do Proofs, that's the math department. Science tries to explain why something happens and narrows the possibilities of it being something else. Even centuries later we have not proven absolutely a model that exactly shows gravity in its entirety. We have a very good estimate, but there are places where we just don't know what is happening.Offhand jabs at Climate science like that only show a lack of understanding of science.Please educate yourself:[/citation]

As someone who has studied climate science, I am well aware of the arguments and problems on both sides. My point was not whether or not global warming exists, but the fact that many people do not stop to think of the consequences of all of the new "Green" sources of power. We just jump on the band wagon, the same way we did with fossil fuels. Since climate science is still in its infancy, we will not be able to predict the consequences of new power sources on a global scale. I am not saying that they should just stop examining alternate sources of energy, but maybe it was time as scientists we were more proactive then reactive. Maybe it is time we behaved more like a math department and did our "proofs" instead of blindly following the pack.

 

[hemburger]

[citation][nom]power hungry[/nom]As someone who has studied climate science, I am well aware of the arguments and problems on both sides. My point was not whether or not global warming exists, but the fact that many people do not stop to think of the consequences of all of the new "Green" sources of power. We just jump on the band wagon, the same way we did with fossil fuels. Since climate science is still in its infancy, we will not be able to predict the consequences of new power sources on a global scale. I am not saying that they should just stop examining alternate sources of energy, but maybe it was time as scientists we were more proactive then reactive. Maybe it is time we behaved more like a math department and did our "proofs" instead of blindly following the pack.[/citation]
Agreed, but this is why they are still researching this new tech, nowhere did it say that this would be the end all and be all resolution to our problems. Implementation for it ceases to exist and even if climate change was proven a reality this technology is still in its infancy =) so no need to worry kiddies!