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| -Short Attention Span Theater- |
| Introducing the artificial leaf |
| 2011-03-30 |
| "A practical artificial leaf has been one of the Holy Grails of science for decades," said Daniel Nocera, Ph.D., who led the research team. "We believe we have done it. The artificial leaf shows particular promise as an inexpensive source of electricity for homes of the poor in developing countries Wow! Finally! In the not-too-distant future, perhaps I could save a lot of money by using the electricity from about a five square meter grid of artificial leaves to power my electric clothes dryer! The device bears no resemblance to natural leaves, which scientists have used as the model for their efforts to develop this new genre of solar cells. About the shape of a poker card but thinner, the device is fashioned from silicon, electronics and catalysts, substances that accelerate chemical reactions that otherwise would not occur, or would run slowly. Placed in a single gallon of water in a bright sunlight, the device could produce enough electricity to supply a house in a developing country with electricity for a day, Nocera said. It does so by splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen. And, eventually, Taxium. The hydrogen and oxygen gases would be stored in a fuel cell, which uses those two materials to produce electricity, located either on top of the house or beside it. What could possibly go wrong? |
| Posted by:gorb |
| #7 Some of us use Water to cool our chips... Koolance |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-03-30 22:43 |
| #6 BP - Always wondered why they didn't build a CPU cooler using a stirling engine. |
| Posted by: Iblis 2011-03-30 20:55 |
| #5 Why not just build a Solar powered http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine ?? With a dynamo on it? |
| Posted by: Bright Pebbles 2011-03-30 18:20 |
| #4 Nope. Using freshwater is against the rules; freshwater disappearing from the surface of the earth and all that. Too bad. I'm sure someone here can explain sorting the H2 from the O2 with an inexpensive backwoods-hardy device so I ask, as the H20 is seperated into its respective elements, what happens to everything else in the water? That is, how clean must this water be so that the leaf is not coated by the other stuff and rendered useless? |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2011-03-30 16:36 |
| #3 Taxium heh... |
| Posted by: Water Modem 2011-03-30 14:25 |
| #2 Ho hum. Been reading about these promising new technologies for 30+ years. For now let's drill for oil and build fission plants, thank you very much. If things change in the next 30 years that's fine too. |
| Posted by: Jock the Salmon 2011-03-30 13:30 |
| #1 Fuel cells are definitely a good way to provide cheap power. Traditionally, they have been extremely expensive and fragile, but the technology is improving and the cost is coming down. Combine newer and cheaper fuel cells with fusion power technology and we will have renewable and clean energy and can tell the Middle East terrorists they can eat their oil. |
| Posted by: DarthVader 2011-03-30 13:09 |