Artificial Photosynthesis and Can You Spot the Bots?

Thanks for the link, very interesting, I had missed that.

About artificial photosynthesis as a fossil fuel replacement, I tend to doubt that. The effort to turn algae into biofuels has hit a roadblock: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/17/big-oil-algae-biofuel-funding-cut-exxonmobil I continue to argue that the IFR as large scale baseload power to produce plentiful clean and safe electricity such that fossil fuels can be replaced with electricity, in one form or another, is the way to go.

Hey Tracy, thanks for your attention. Yes, I looked at Wiki., just about 2% effectivity, if I understood, astonishes me. So what Sabine reports could be hopeful? Interesting to hear, that development in the US is similar to Europe about what you told about corn-farming. Switchgrass, don't really know, but the only little bit Plains-landscape here was in Hungary. People settled down there a thousand years ago. So I don't know if it's growing here. Wish you the best

Hi Thomas, I do not know about the efficiency of corn, I imagine that the internet would have that information. What I can say about using corn for ethanol is that there are rotten side effects. In the US, instead of growing food corn (and wheat, barley, oats, etc) many farmers have switched a large number of their fields to ethanol corn. This throws off the crop rotation system so that the farmers have to use lots of fertilizer and other chemicals. These chemicals wash into the Mississippi River and contribute to the killing of the wetlands in the Mississippi delta. What we ought to be using for ethanol is switchgrass, which grows natively on the plains of our upper midwest and results in a higher yield of ethanol for the same size of field because it grows much faster and can be harvested many times in a growing season. The switchgrass also leaves a native environment for migratory animals and insects like butterflies and doesn't require chemicals or fertilizer to thrive. Unfortunately, corn-based ethanol is too political -- farmers make a lot of money from it and vote for any politician who promotes it over switchgrass.

Do you know the efficient of natural/biological photosynthesis? Here in Germany is discussion about using of bio-mass from corn a.s.o. for electricity. This could be alternative better

Rad Antonov

Thanks Tracey!

If anyone is interested, Green Bank Observatory does a bi-weekly community zoom sharing astronomy news. March 29 is on the DART impact and the orbital changes of that asteroid. You can sign up for the zoom link and get on their mailing list at this link https://greenbankobservatory.org/science/community-zoom-calls/. They post the talks on YouTube afterward and they have those links on their webpage as well.

Thanks.

If this is real and not just hype, it could be interesting. Fuel cells for hydrogen (and other gasses) need rare, expensive elements and so that's a plus. The efficiency is "record breaking" at 10%, which is about half as efficient as solar panels currently -- not so great, but a start. Taking CO2 out of the air is good and then any put back in as a result of burning the ethanol isn't adding any new CO2, just recycling what's there.

Maybe artificial photosynthesis could make the need for developing nuclear fusion & render fission plants obsolete. Any thoughts, people?