

Major Advance in Artificial Photosynthesis Poses Win/Win for the Environment - velodrome
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/2015/04/16/major-advance-in-artificial-photosynthesis/

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ghshephard
It's an interesting diversion, and useful beyond just carbon sequestration - I
_love_ how this is a combination of machine/organic lifeforms: _" nanowires
harvest solar energy and deliver electrons to bacteria, where carbon dioxide
is reduced and combined with water for the synthesis of a variety of targeted,
value-added chemical products.”"_ \- (Bacterial Cyborgs?) - but the sooner we
transition to a solar based energy economy, the sooner we can stop doing inane
things like burning coal for energy.

Note also, they have a long, long way to go before this becomes even remotely
commercially viable. _" With this approach, the Berkeley team achieved a solar
energy conversion efficiency of up to 0.38-percent for about 200 hours under
simulated sunlight, which is about the same as that of a leaf."_

So, they are about 40 years behind where Solar energy is today.

Still cool though.

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graphene
Keep in mind that converting solar energy to chemical energy (what plants do,
and what these researchers have done) is a much harder problem than converting
solar energy to electrical energy directly.

Also, the main result of this work seems to be not energetic efficiency, but
the production of flexible precursor chemicals.

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dredmorbius
But plants already convert solar energy to chemical storage at efficiencies of
1-3%. Up to 10% for algae (higher per-hectare yields are based on added
energy). It turns out that existing artificial proceses might already get
close to this via electrolysis, carbon separation from seawater,and Fischer-
Tropsch synthesis. But for raw efficiency, it's really hard to beat plants.

The other problem is that humans are already appropriating 20-40% of all
primary production. So while plants are good at what they do, we're already
leaning on them really hard.

Unless humans can come up with methods which are 1) complimentary to existing
plant activity (e.g., they don't compete for the same space, water, and/or
minerals), and that's 2) roughly as efficient or better, we look kind of
stuck.

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davedx
These guys in Israel have been developing something very similar for a while
now: [http://www.newco2fuels.co.il/](http://www.newco2fuels.co.il/)

"NewCO2Fuels innovative technology converts CO2 and H2O into syngas and from
it synthetic transportation fuels or chemicals using present available
technologies. The end products are competitive with current market prices with
no incentives thanks to the very high efficiency rate of the NCF system."

I stumbled on them while Googling just last week.

Great to see this kind of R&D being done. I'd love to read a comparison of the
various CO2 sequestration technologies out there.

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Tloewald
Minus the photosynthesis part.

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jessriedel
Anyone know of commentary beyond this lab press release?

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mytochar
Yes, please! Someone with more knowledge on the subject please enlighten us!
It looks really cool to me, but I don't know enough to start a conversation,
heh!

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clord
It's interesting work. I wonder how much input energy is required to mine,
refine, and build the required silicon and titanium oxide nanowires? If it's
less than 1 to 1 with the lifetime output, then the tech will need more work
to be a real solution. Hopefully it scales.

