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Mimicking Photosynthesis To Split Water
plantsdoitsocanwe writes "An international team of researchers led by Monash University has used chemicals found in plants to replicate a key process in photosynthesis, paving the way to a new approach that uses sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The breakthrough could revolutionize the renewable energy industry by making hydrogen — touted as the clean, green fuel of the future — cheaper and easier to produce on a commercial scale." This was a laboratory demonstration only and the researchers say they need to bring up the efficiency.
This was a laboratory demonstration only and the researchers say they need to bring up the efficiency.
Shame on you, submitter. This is Slashdot, you're supposed to write a sensational story and let the comments tell us why it actually won't work. If you're going to write things that make sense and treat us like adults, you're missing the entire point.
We are in a phase similar to the Cambrian Explosion, when all sorts of lifeforms with weird body plans gave it a shot . . . but which were winnowed down to a few by the time things started to crawl on land. Chances are just a few of the many alternative energy techniques being fooled about with will pan out commercially . . . but this is a necessary process.
Now, cue the cranky "Gee, Slashdot posts stories about dramatic advances in solar energy all the time; why doesn't my car run on solar cells yet?" posts.
This was a laboratory demonstration only and the researchers say they need to bring up the efficiency.
There have been numerous such laboratory demonstrations on different ways to produce hydrogen easily. But the attempts to bring up efficiency are just what failed.
The largest prime factor of my UID is 263267.
Let's give them some credit at least. They've managed a break through in science and just because it's not perfected yet, you feel the need to disregard it completely? They obviously know it needs more work, they admitted so in TFA.
Give 'em a break man.
Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day. Light a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life. - Terry Pratchett
It is easy to get a breakthrough in one criteria if you shaft the other ones.
As an example, you could very well produce hydrogen very efficiently from sunlight without any fancy tech by simply focusing enough sunlight to raise the temperature to 2500 C, at which point water spontaneously separates into hydrogen and oxygen through thermolysis. This would be possible completely without moving parts, no toxic materials, and no new technology.
Problem? It would be much more expensive than making hydrogen from natural gas.
This is why these vapourware stories are so useless. There will be a vast number of ways to convert solar energy into hydrogen or electricity, I could start listing various ways to do it in all kinds of elabourate manners, but it does not mean any of them are good, nor does it mean any one of them is likely to be more efficient than simply using a conventional steam turbine and solar concentrators.
Seriously, what you are attempting to beat is something which, depending on temperature achieved, can have up to 40% conversion efficiency, economies of scale, and uses well tested technology. When you can beat solar thermal then you can start trying to have a go at nuclear or coal, which have a number of other advantages. Simply finding yet another way to convert solar energy into useful work is quite a different thing from solving our energy problems.
Actually, your answer to why your car doesn't run on solar yet is rather simple. Because we haven't needed solar power to win a war yet. Nuclear got everything it needed to get off the ground, working, demonstrated, and dropped. It was needed to fight a war. Radio, space ships, etc? Same things. The US Military is just starting to come to the conclusion that half their vehicles exist solely to deliver fuel and supplies to the other half(the fighting half) and that there is a huge risk in running tankers full of Diesel and gas to forward areas, as they become very easy targets. Destroy the supply lines, and those 70Ton M1A tanks become very large, immobile targets. Add to that, the skyrocketing cost of fuel the military has to buy. (not to mention, the huge costs of keeping 50% of your peopled tied up in support roles).
THat is why the military is starting to look at things like solar, small nuclear plants, etc. They are looking at hybrid vehicles that work like a train, the whole powertrain is electric, powered by a generator. Some of these vehicles are pretty cool, they could sit there and idle at the forward CP, and you just plug all your radios and equipment into the truck. No need to lug a generator with you.
I have a feeling things are going to improve quite quickly over the next few years. Nothing improves technology like fat government contracts!
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
This sounds like a bit of a red herring to me.
Are you saying that we should abandon any new idea or technology if, in its infancy, it isn't better than what we already have? I think that would put an end to a great deal of innovation that we could benefit from in the future.
I think this is awesome news personally.
Next stop: Cold fusion! :)
Photosynthesis has a maximum theoretical efficiency of about 11% from sunlight into energy stored in biomass (eg. the plant). But in the wild, it's only 3-6% efficient.
Familiar PV cells already get 15-25% efficiency; experimental concentration cells get over 45%. And the PV outputs electric current, not just biomass to burn inefficiently.
Those cells cost a lot more energy to make than plants do, but they last over 30 years, while most plants don't.
I'm not so sure that mimicking photosynthesis is such a great way to go.
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make install -not war
That clearly depends on its tensile strength.
They are not claiming a breakthrough in energy production, they claim to have made a breakthrough in artificial photosynthisis, no small feat IMHO. Also the CSIRO are not in the habit of making unsubstantiated claims and their evidence has been published in a peer-reviewed journal.
It's pretty obvious you are looking for a different breakthrough and it's a certainty you won't find it if you are unwilling to entertain NEW knowledge that MAY be relevant.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
How many animals use photosynthesis to get the energy to move around?
Ultimately, all of them.
What is the ratio of plants / animals in the world?
It is extremely high, necessarily.
Compact energy sources are finite and have quite significant impact on our surroundings. In order to move the most amount of stuff possible, humans must learn to disintermediate plants.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
Cows move about. They get their energy to do so by eating grass.
So indirectly, cows are solar-powered, aren't they ?
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