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Plug Into a Plant: a New Approach To Clean Energy Harvesting
cylonlover writes "Millions of years have evolution has resulted in plants being the most efficient harvesters of solar energy on the planet. Much research is underway into ways to artificially mimic photosynthesis in devices like artificial leaves, but researchers at the University of Georgia are working on a different approach that gives new meaning to the term 'power plant.' Their technology harvests energy generated through photosynthesis before the plants can make use of it (abstract), allowing the energy to instead be used to run low-powered electrical devices."
As opposed to naturally mimic?
It sounds like a new approach to the Potato clock.
However I would like to point out the trade off. If you are going to produce energy with plants, (Sound green and all) but you will probably need to strip forests to give enough sunlight, as well as irrigation. For these plants that will not grow too much, because most of their energy is being taken away. You are better off growing switchgrass or other material to produce energy.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
From what I understand the efficiency of photosynthesis used by the plants is quite poor. Just about 2% or so. Even the chemistry used in photosynthesis has a theoretical maximum of 25%. Compare that to theoretical maximum efficiency of ideal Carnot engines at around 57% for typical gas engine source/sink temperatures and the 38%(? not very sure of this number, too lazy to look up) or so theoretical maximum efficiency for windmills.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
It's a good thing plants aren't sentient.
when the Invid catch a whiff of this, don't say i didn't warn you.
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Is this the MPAA? Is this the RIAA? Is this the DMCA? I thought it was the USA!
"Treeborgs: trees, plus technology!"
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
Millions of years have evolution has resulted in plants being the most efficient harvesters of solar energy on the planet. Much research is underway into ways to artificially mimic photosynthesis in devices like artificial leaves, but researchers at the University of Georgia are working on a different approach that gives new meaning to the term 'power plant.' Their technology harvests energy generated through photosynthesis before the plants can make use of it
Shrugs, throws another log on the fire!
Electricity producing plants gives new meaning to the term "green energy", too!
Like any other seedlings I imagine you'd have to cultivate the plants in controlled environments for maximum yield -- Gives new meaning to "harvesting energy".
With these plants making our energy wouldn't the 'greenhouse effect' actually be good for us?
What if you combined this technology with those Glowing Plants?
You could add LEDs in addition to the inherent luminescence and give new meaning to both Grow Lights, and OLED!
It's just too bad that no one I know would use this tech, everyone in my address book is an asshole -- It's a regular Dicktionary... or is that an example of Dickshunnery?
OMFG! Two New Meanings for one word!
Millions of years of evolution has resulted
FTFY.
"You guys are off the grid with all computing work load ?" "Yeah, we bought a century-old, 1000-acre forest and are running our data centre off it." "How much power does it leave in the forest ?" "Nearly none. 99 percent of the power leaves the trees." "Have the trees any leaves left ?" "No, we chose for an eco-rightist approach..."
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Yeah, and if Monsanto holds the patent the plant power cells will die off after one generation and we will have re-invented disposable batteries. But this has all happened before.
[citation "a disease killed the world's cats and dogs, leaving humans with no pets. To replace them, humans began keeping plants as household pets. Realizing the plants' capacity to supply the energy to charge cell phones by subverting the mechanism of photosynthesis, humans trained them to perform simple electrical tasks. By 2020, American culture is based on plant slave labor."
Plug into an atom instead. Then run wires to it. Million to one ratio of energy density compared to any chemical (combustion or otherwise) process. Then we will also avoid the cultivation of these energy producing plants which would naturally be really ugly. And would after neural evolution and social resentment, turn on their masters and bury the Statue of Liberty on a beach.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
They are not.
If you compare the harvested energy (per a certain area) from solar panels to plants you will see that solar panels collect much more energy over a year.
So my lawn can power my house, and I won't need to mow since it has no energy to grow?
Plants are nowhere near "the most efficient harvesters of solar energy on the planet". The most efficient plants, such as sugar cane, reach around 8%, on par with the very lowest efficiency photovoltaic modules. More typical efficiences are 0.1% to 2%.
When I was camping in a forest, I saw somebody who had mounted a wall socket on a tree, put his shaving mirror on top of it, and plugged his (rechargable) electric razor into it and shaved himself, so it looked like the razor was powered by the tree.
Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
I have an English laurel hedge. I'd plug into it except it has one of those big British style receptacles and I've lost my adapter.
Have gnu, will travel.
Perhaps the OP can point out the data backing up his sweeping statement that the plants of millions of years ago were not the most efficient harvesters of solar energy on the planet. Back then, what was and what DNA changes have resulted in them now becoming the most efficient harvesters?
I mean, grabbing the energy the plant 'produces' by photosynthesis. I don't suppose the plant was going to do anything important with that energy? like sustaining it's own life?
CLI paste? paste.pr0.tips!
Plants are by far not the most efficient energy harvesters.
The amount of light energy transformed into sugar or what ever is far below 10%.
Cheap solar cells are at 20% and the best are over 40%
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Too bad such a concept will never work.
Plants evolved to support themselves, not to generate tons of energy.
Even crappy solar cells are more efficient than any plant out there, add an LED light source and you're still probably something like 10 times more efficient than the plant-based solution.
Too bad people fall for stuff if it's "plant-based" or "natural".
Stop confusing peoples feel good stories with facts...
This statement "Millions of years have evolution has resulted in plants being the most efficient harvesters of solar energy on the planet" is flat out incorrect.
Plants come in at about 2% energy conversion efficiency. The best solar cells are over 35% conversion efficiency.
Now, to be fair, plants aren't optimimized for energy conversion efficiency-- they are basically solar-powered engineering units that synthesize complex organic molecules and make self-replicating macromolecular structures out of little more than carbon dioxide and water, plus a few trace minerals... they are harvesting, mining, concentrating, and structural machines of amazing complexity. But "efficient energy conversion engines"-- no, not even close.
When the very first sentence of an article is factually incorrect, I have no interest in reading any more of it.
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
if plant photosynthesis were enough, we'd... just burn them. we know how that ends though: deforestation, desertification, and tapping into paleo-photosynthesis. clearly anything that is going to be relevant to modern society needs to have better conversion efficiencies.
"Millions of years have evolution has resulted in plants being the most efficient harvesters of solar energy on the planet"
Nope, humans are the most efficient solar energy harvesters. Plants have a shitty 3-9% efficiency range, our solar panels go much higher.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Yes, a windmill is a mechanical beast, but you are the one trying to introduce a thermodynamics bias, as that is not what other people are talking about. Read up on Betz' law that covers the theoretical maximum kinetic energy that can be extracted from wind by an open turbine. This is not near 100%, because otherwise the output of the wind turbine would need to have near zero wind velocity and would amount to a bunch of stagnant air blocking any more air from incoming. And even taking into account this theoretical maximum, most wind turbines reach less than 80% of the theoretical maximum at optimal conditions, and that theoretical maximum is only 59% of the kinetic energy of wind that flows through the turbine. So now, they are not close to 100% efficient at extracting energy from wind.
The only vaguely relevant number in this article is the following quote;
The researchers say that small-scale experiments of this system have yielded a maximum current density that is two orders of magnitude larger than previously reported for similar systems.
Even that is meaningless as there is no basis for comparison. One hundred times a few milliamps at a few microvolts is still not much power.
I just love the following quote;
If we are able to leverage technologies like genetic engineering to enhance stability of the plant photosynthetic machineries, I'm very hopeful that this technology will be competitive to traditional solar panels in the future.
It sounds like they are having issues keeping the thing from breaking down. Considering that the process interrupts the plant's ability to make food for itself longevity might be an issue.
As with many other "scientific breakthroughs" this looks like another "Give me more money for research" announcement.