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Evolution has had billions of years to improve on photosynthesis, but there still seems to be a lot left in the table. Could we engineer a more efficient photo
by slashdev 1y ago
Evolution has had billions of years to improve on photosynthesis, but there still seems to be a lot left in the table.
Could we engineer a more efficient photosynthesis?
- jmb99 1y ago> Could we engineer a more efficient photosynthesis? Yes! They’re called solar panels, and our best ones are about 4x more efficient than the most efficient photosynthesis processes in nature, afaik.
- hollerith 1y agoSolar panels so far don't remove CO2 from the air, though.
- slashdev 1y agoYou can connect them with other equipment to do that, if that’s your goal. Not very effective though
- svdr 1y agoThe removal is only temporary.
- hollerith 1y agoNot if the panels were to produce graphite pellets that people could bury or dump in ocean trenches.
- slashdev 1y agoWe both know people would burn graphite pellets. That’s what we do with wood pellets today.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- hollerith 1y agoI see that as a positive, not a negative. Since the pellets can be sold, investors are more likely to invest in the development of the process. And the extra volume of production tends to increase the efficiency, i.e., to reduce the cost (paid by altruists and governments) of producing the pellets that do end up in the ground or in ocean trenches.
- slashdev 1y agoIt might actually help with financing the things. I guess it is almost carbon neutral. Zero efficient though.
- dharma1 1y agoCan be a couple of hundred years with trees and wood used for housing. Long enough to figure things out
- slashdev 1y agoThat’s what I’m using as the benchmark, but I was thinking more like bio engineering to create an organism that gets closer to solar panel efficiency. Would be potentially very useful for timber or biomass production. I doubt people would trust eating it.
- 7734128 1y agoA tree grows a leaf slightly more efficiently than we create a solar panel though.
- tomrod 1y ago> Evolution ... improve[d] on photosynthesis Evolution simply describes the macro process of death and birth as affected by the environment, no improvement planned. It could well be that a certain set of traits survive purely by chance or slightly improved odds in one set of circumstances that are detrimental later.