Artificial Photosynthesis Advances: Turning Sunlight Into Fuel — Ultra Unlimited

Key Takeaways

Scientists have successfully developed a system that uses sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to produce methane, a sustainable fuel that could replace fossil fuels (Yamada et al., 2023).

This artificial photosynthesis approach mimics natural plant photosynthesis and represents a major step towards harvesting clean renewable energy from the sun (Domen et al., 2020).

Preliminary outdoor testing showed the system could continuously produce methane for three days, suggesting potential for scale-up and commercialization (Yamada et al., 2023).

While still in development, artificial photosynthesis offers a complementary approach to solar power and could enable production of versatile chemicals for fuels and materials (Blankenship et al., 2011; Lewis & Nocera, 2006).

Sir_Kevin,
@Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com avatar

We have no shortage of climate destroying methane. Why are they trying to make more?

nefurious_krankstar,
@nefurious_krankstar@lemmy.world avatar

Unlike traditional production methods, this works in a cycle and doesnt require extraction from underground. Fuels are usefull because they carry large amounts of energy at low weight/volume. It’s a vastly superior storage than lithium batteries.

DarkThoughts,

Those type of efuels are inefficient and expensive. Especially when we can make use of the electricity directly, without stupid conversation methods. There might be the odd edge cases here and there, but this is not going to be a "sustainable" alternative to fossil fuels.

NotMyOldRedditName,

Would it not be better for something like methane production for rockets?

Sure we could also produce it with electricity, water and CO2, but that seems like an extra step that would be less efficient?

MelastSB,

It’s “sustainable” as in “we can keep producing methane even when oil fields are empty”, not as in “methane does not produce greenhouse gases when burned”

Ultra_Unlimited,

Important distinctions. Fortunately there are lots of other renewable innovations to celebrate. I like to believe we are getting closer to the solarpunk future humanity deserves!

Noodle07,

Humanity doesn’t deserve shit

Aurenkin,

And yet it creates plenty of it anyway

Nudding,

For anyone down voting, how many species have humans caused to go extinct? Is our wellbeing worth the permanent deletion of every other species on the planet? Fuck humanity.

NotMyOldRedditName,

It uses CO2 to produce the methane, so it should be neutral ignoring things like CO2 to make the system in the first place.

Skua,

If it's getting all of the carbon for that methane from atmospheric carbon dioxide then it should at least be neutral. The production should, if that is how it's working, remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as burning the product would release. This would make it a hell of a lot better than fossil extraction since that's taking carbon not currently in the atmosphere and then releasing it in to the atmosphere

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