It's the Climate, Stupid.

[living sounds]

https://www.cambridgenetwork.co.uk/news/%E2%80%98artificial-leaf%E2%80%99-successfully-produces-clean-gas

Photosynthesizing solar panels?!?

It's been attempted for a long time to achieve artificial photosynthesis in a practically applicable way. Energy density, storage and transfer is much better for chemical than electrical sources.

Ideally a low maintenance panel system on your roof creates a liquid fuel in the summer to be stored under your house for heating and energy in the winter. And you could put it in your car. If it worked, I would buy that!

 

[JohnRoberts]

It's been attempted for a long time to achieve artificial photosynthesis in a practically applicable way. Energy density, storage and transfer is much better for chemical than electrical sources.

Ideally a low maintenance panel system on your roof creates a liquid fuel in the summer to be stored under your house for heating and energy in the winter. And you could put it in your car. If it worked, I would buy that!

Yes hopefully the future will be full of many such advancements.

JR

 

[cyrano]

There was some news a while ago about using bacteria to produce electricity directly. Milliwatts in a lab setting, but seemingly scalable.

I'll see if I can dig it up.

But then there's news of this kind fairly often. Need to see if it ever gets put into practice...

EDIT

Silly me. There's tons of news about bacteria and electricity. Even a specialised research page and a Wikipedia page. But this one's the cutest:

https://www.dezeen.com/2019/08/03/teresa-van-dongen-mud-well-light-bacteria-microorganisms-electricity/

 

[ruffrecords]

It's been attempted for a long time to achieve artificial photosynthesis in a practically applicable way. Energy density, storage and transfer is much better for chemical than electrical sources.

Ideally a low maintenance panel system on your roof creates a liquid fuel in the summer to be stored under your house for heating and energy in the winter. And you could put it in your car. If it worked, I would buy that!

While these ideas represent an interesting approach to solving the the problem, they very often ignore basic physics. For example, these system are generally relatively inefficient (as is photosynthesise). To produce enough fuel to heat a house and run a car would probably need several acres of panels. Not practical in suburbia.

Cheers

Ian