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If a 'artificial leaf -> fuel cell -> power' is less efficient than 'photovoltaic cell -> battery -> power' and the cost is comparable, I don't see how your poi
by darkmighty 12y ago
If a 'artificial leaf -> fuel cell -> power' is less efficient than 'photovoltaic cell -> battery -> power' and the cost is comparable, I don't see how your point is valid.
Yes, we'll need a lot of energy, but note that that figure is for the whole world. I think it's doable. Hell, it's the best alternative so 'doability' doesn't really matter, but I guess we'll see how close we'll get (with nuclear+solar). Note that china alone has 200 nuclear plants in project right now [1].
[1] http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/02/china-could-build-200-nuclear-reactors.html http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/02/china-could-build-200-nucle...
- baddox 12y agoIt depends how you're calculating efficiency. If you're talking about solar input to usable output, I contend that efficiency doesn't actually matter that much (at least until we start using a sizable portion of Earth's solar input). What matters more is dollars per watt. Last I checked (several years ago), simple solar heat engines were considerably cheaper per watt than photovoltaics (for generating electricity), even though photovoltaics were considerably more efficient by the former metric.