Solar Energy: Springtime For The Artificial Leaf

http://www.nature.com/news/solar-energy-springtime-for-the-artificial-leaf-1.15341

by danmaz74 • 12 years ago

29 8 12 years ago

“The biggest energy source we have by far is the Sun,” he says. “The best way to store energy other than in the nucleus of an atom is in chemical fuels. It's inevitable someone is going to take the biggest source and store it in the most dense way.”

danmaz74• 12 years ago

The last sentence in the article makes a lot of sense: “The biggest energy source we have by far is the Sun,” he says. “The best way to store energy other than in the nucleus of an atom is in chemical fuels. It's inevitable someone is going to take the biggest source and store it in the most dense way.”

ams6110• 12 years ago

Solar energy is diffuse though. When you go outside on a sunny day you feel comfortable warmth, you don't burst into flames.

So whatever solar energy collection you do has to be spread out over a relatively large area. This quickly creates several problems, first of all creating that volume of solar capturing devices, and then the environmental impact of taking the solar energy from whatever else might be using it (e.g. plant life that would otherwise be growing on "solar farm" land).

lutorm2• 12 years ago

The fact that you need a large area is largely (!) irrelevant, what matters is the cost per energy unit. Except possibly in Seattle, most American single-family houses have enough roof area to generate their annual electricity usage, including that for a hypothetical EV, using current PV panels. Add area used for parking, and you have more potential in densely populated areas. Storage is still an issue, though.

crdoconnor2• 12 years ago

There's plenty of desert out there.

diafygi• 12 years ago

There's a company that is trying to do this with microbes: Joule Unlimited[1]. I have no idea whether they are going to be profitable, but it is a really cool idea.

[1] http://www.jouleunlimited.com/how-it-works

noir_lord• 12 years ago

I'm somewhat in this industry (I'm developing compliance software for UK domestic renewable installers...stay with me I'm going somewhere..).

Part of that was developing a software implementation of the UK government's Standard Assessment Procedure for estimating solar yields.

It's really quite surprising just how much energy falls on a single square meter on a south facing roof even in the North of England.

It's going to be interesting to see where this market goes in the next 10 years.

Solar Energy: Springtime For The Artificial Leaf

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