A synthetic leaf could lead to solar storage

[begreen]

Interesting stuff coming out of the Nocera Lab at MIT. It's early, but is showing some nice potential already. Tie this together with a fuel cell and you have the potential for 24/7 electricity.

http://www.technewsworld.com/story/72156.html

 

[webbie]

Amazing...truly!
Energy is out there.

Someday mankind will look back and laugh at what people did to keep the fires burning (so to speak).

 

[semipro]

I hope this is legit!

Yeah, we'll look back and say "I can't believe we used to burn that!"

As much as I love burning wood I'd gladly give it up.

 

[begreen]

I dreamt about this last night. Trying to work out a hydrogen storage system in my sleep.

Here's a bit more info:

http://www.dailytech.com/Scientists...Quantum+Dots+for+Solar+Cells/article21238.htm

 

[Adios Pantalones]

Awesome. Storage is one of the obvious issues. I loved that they quoted Sabbath: "Soon the World Will Love You, Sweet Leaf "

Our main campus also has a couple of other solar advances that I want to see commercialized. Anti-glare technology, and a method to collect photons at the edge of the panel- efficiency would be increased by reducing scattering/reflection losses- supposedly doubling efficiency.

 

[begreen]

I read about the edge collection technology last year. Has anything come of this?

 

[Adios Pantalones]

I think it will take a couple/few years to develop the production process. Plus- there's licensing issues, IP, etc to deal with.

I dunno, but I hope it's real. A couple innovations like these and solar could be real (makes economic sense without subsidy) in a few years.

 

[ihookem]

At 76% efficiency is unreal, but how much is 10 mili amps? A sq. centimeter is 10 miliamps. How big would the leaf have to be to power a home of 1000 watts?