Scientists pioneer a new way to turn sunlight into fuel
joh.cam.ac.uk
joh.cam.ac.uk
It’s a bit like turning the rotor blades when the wind is too high to keep the thing from ripping itself apart.
But imagine if you could make a turbine that generated tons more electricity in a gale force wind. Think what you could do with that much concentrated power.
However, storing hydrogen is probably infeasible for biology. It's difficult to store hydrogen, even using metal containers without it leaking out, because the molecules are so small.
Granted there are also opportunity costs to everything - rabbits dominated Australia comically despite the widespread deadliness by investing in reproduction and evasion instead of dangerous defense mechanisms.
One problem with floating plants is that dirt and water are heavy.
James Cameron stated he has been a passionate scuba diver and it was a slight nod to others who may have had similar experiences.
[0] https://www.startalkradio.net/show/ [1] https://www.startalkradio.net/show/the-spirit-of-exploration...
> Think what you could do with that much concentrated power.
That sounds more like a headache (now you have to uprate the whole power-handling systems) than a benefit.
> High sunlight can raise plant growth rates but can potentially cause cellular damage. The likelihood of deleterious effects is lowered by a sophisticated set of photoprotective mechanisms, one of the most important being the controlled dissipation of energy from chlorophyll within photosystem II (PSII) measured as non-photochemical quenching (NPQ). Although ubiquitous, the role of NPQ in plant productivity remains uncertain because it momentarily reduces the quantum efficiency of photosynthesis.
That the efficiency is not higher than this leads us to believe that either:
- there are strong evolutionary imperatives to not raise the efficiency any further (ie: "there has been a need not to", rather than "there has not been a need to). This could be due to a lot of reasons; oxidative stress, a plant's 'desire' to have a large leaf surface, a tendency to dry out the soil too quickly, etc etc.
- With the current 'design' of chlorophyl, it is not possible to increase efficiency further, and it's quite hard to get out of the local optimum.
Chlorophyll, the main photosynthetic pigment of plants,
absorbs mainly blue and red wavelengths from the Sun and
reflects green ones, and it is this reflected light that
gives plants their leafy color. This fact puzzles some
biologists because the sun transmits most of its energy in
the green part of the visible spectrum.
I imagine some mechanism of foresight or conservatism must develope in a diverse population for the population to survive in total. Such a mechanism may have had to be present in the earliest lifeforms or else long periods of accumulating complexity and diversity, seem open to frequent and potentially unrecoverable upheaval, by the temporary competitiveness of mutations fit only for immediate material demands.
'Their method also managed to achieve more efficient absorption of solar light than natural photosynthesis.'
This process would have benefits where high density energy is needed, hydrogen powered container ships being a popular plan of mine.
But if you don’t have space constraints, involving a hydrogen fuel cell only adds inefficiencies. Most fuel cells are in the 64-80% efficiency range, which the theoretical max being 84%. This might be worse off than the PV->battery->use pipeline that we’re used to.
What are the purpose of these PR article from University to other Academic Science magazines? If it was to attract investors or sponsorship, surely companies and individual have other means of access to how to invest or not, and not looking at every magazine / papers / Website announcement.
There are countless battery "breakthrough" and we all know they are at least another 5 years away from commercialise, or in most cases, never. Apart from inner nerds wanted to know, what value do they provide? What purpose do they serve?
Also, there is some element of just wanting people to be aware of cool stuff that got done.
Universities are primarily there to produce scientific breakthroughs, not bring technologies to market. The value is in undertaking high risk research.
Pretty much this though probably for attracting students too.
> surely companies and individual have other means of access to how to invest or not, and not looking at every magazine / papers / Website announcement.
Sure they do, some have existing relationships etc. But it doesn't follow that this sort of release isn't useful.
For example, I'm in industry and, occasionally, we are looking at something that I believe could benefit from external expertise. Sure I have academic and consultancy contacts but I've also Googled what I'm interested in and found relevant press releases or, more often, papers. A phone call or email exchange has often led to a collaboration or pointers in a useful direction.