{"id":11910,"date":"2011-09-27T12:57:34","date_gmt":"2011-09-27T17:57:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/?p=11910"},"modified":"2024-01-01T10:04:58","modified_gmt":"2024-01-01T16:04:58","slug":"the-future-of-solar-powered-devices-might-lie-in-plant-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/2011\/09\/the-future-of-solar-powered-devices-might-lie-in-plant-technology\/","title":{"rendered":"The future of solar-powered devices might lie in plant technology"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I’m sure there’s a “green energy” pun that can be applied to this article’s title, let alone this article as a whole. So let’s get that out of the way right now and let’s start thinking green. Ok ok, sorry. I had to. Solar powered devices have their advantages in converting light to energy, but the biggest disadvantage is that you require a lot of photoreceptors to produce a small amount of energy. When it comes to power-hungry devices like laptops or automobiles, solar power may not be the best primary source of power. Of course we have seen it work before but there is a lot of energy loss and there are many technological barriers that exist against bringing solar-powered devices on par with their less eco-friendly counterparts. One of the biggest barriers is boosting solar efficiency beyond the 6% to 25% efficiency levels that today’s technology peaks at. Furthermore, there’s no such thing as 100% energy efficiency, right? I mean, there has to be some<\/em> sort of loss in energy no matter what the process. Unless there’s something out there that comes really damn close to perfect efficiency levels….<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You guessed it, plants absorb, store, and use energy with near 100% efficiency! So does that mean our new BMW will be covered in algae instead of paint? Not really, but the approach scientists are researching is more on the lines of bio-neural circuitry<\/a> that is straight out of science-fiction. Greg Scholes of the University of Toronto and Alexandra Olaya-Castro of the University College of London co-authored an article that was published last Friday in Nature Chemistry<\/em> that outlined plausible theories on how to duplicate the energy harnessing power of plants in modern-day devices. The plan is to make “a biological-based circuit that uses the quantum mechanical effects of light as it excites molecules of pigments and colors found in nature.” Scholes and Olaya-Castro have re-written some theories as to how plants gather energy and their findings can allow scientists to produce a more accurate model in the artificial creation of the entire plant energy-gathering process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The paper gives specific instructions on what properties in plants scientists should focus on and how to focus on them. So should you expect a biodegradable iPad anytime soon? No, however their research has brought us a step closer to concepts like the Mercedes-Benz Biome<\/a> becoming a reality. Aside from the problem of figuring out how to artificially mimic the properties of plants, the issue of making sure that devices have a shelf life of at least 20 years without degrading into compost also exists. At least scientists now have the “green light” to experiment with these new concepts and theories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hat tip to StyxaT<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Source: Discovery News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plants power the future! Scientists tap nature’s secrets to build near-100% efficient bio-powered devices. Forget solar, dream green with photosynthetic technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":11922,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[738],"tags":[2128,2124,2127,955,236,2125,2123,2126],"class_list":["post-11910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-bio-technology","tag-nature-chemistry","tag-plant-technology","tag-renewable-energy","tag-science","tag-solar-energy","tag-solar-power","tag-sustainable-energy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/09\/leaf-zoom.jpg?fit=825%2C600&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pelghY-366","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11910"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11910\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22553,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11910\/revisions\/22553"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11922"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.friedyoda.com\/noisecast\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}