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."

Comments

Article is flat-out wrong.

[Geoffrey.landis]

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.