The Importance of Funding Research
Sep 7
Scientists in Australia may have found a way to use a type of photosynthesis to make solar cells more efficient:
Synthetic molecules that mimic chlorophyll in plants may one day form the basis of highly efficient solar cells, say Australian researchers.
Professor Max Crossley’s molecular electronics group at the University of Sydney recently presented its research at the International Conference on Porphyrins and Phthalocyanines in Rome.
“Nature has evolved this very efficient process, over millions of years, for harvesting light and then converting it into energy,” says Crossley.
“We’re trying to mimic aspects of natural photosynthesis.”
… Based on what nature delivers, they expect to eventually have much more efficient solar cells than exist at the moment.
A leaf is about 30-40% efficient at converting light to electricity and this compares with just a 12% efficiency for conventional silicon-based solar cells.
“We have the basis of a biomimetic organic photovoltaic device or solar cell,” says Crossley.
“In the long term what we’re trying to do is have something we can simply paint on a roof, like a thin layer.”
If this pans out, it will obviously be huge news. And it demonstrates the importance of funding basic scientific research. This is not a minor tweak; it is an entirely new way of looking at the problem. Things like this are one reason the Bush Administration has been such a disaster. Faced with the need to wean the country away from carbon based fuels for a variety of reasons and a public ready to listen to a pitch for more funding for basic scientific research in these areas, the Bush Administration did nothing of any significance. Their tax cuts at all costs economic policy has left no money and their energy policy has largely consisted of paying oil companies to dig out oil they were going to dig out anyway. Research has been less than an after thought.
That attitude slows down the rate of progress. Basic research is a lot like fertilizer. At first, it looks like you’ve just spread crap all over the place. But eventually flowers grow. The Bush Administration is refusing to fertilize a critical area of research, slowing the pace of advancement at a time when we as a nation need to make as much progress as possible in the shortest amount of time.
#1 by gattsuru at September 7th, 2006
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Wow. In related news, the sky remains blue. We blame Bush.
So, exactly how has funding for research been doing over the last ten years or so?
I mean, it’s well enough to simply state that Chimpy McBushitler must hate alternative fuels — because, as we all know, there’s no job for chemical refinery plants, an excellent tranmission system, and mining capability, in a solar cell and hydrogen economy (as evidenced by Chevron/Texaco’s funding for solar cells last year) — and as a result must have reduced funding in his madman scramble for lower taxes. But for those of us who actually have a working upper spinal cord, nay, even fully functioning centres for logic and reasons, do you care to actually provide proof for those assumptions?
#2 by Ted at September 7th, 2006
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http://www.edn.com/article/CA456111.html?partner=eb&pubdate=10%2F1%2F2004 is the best I could come up with..
#3 by gattsuru at September 7th, 2006
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No reference to solar cells, not even a reference to alternative energy sources. Not particularly relevant to the linked story, and not overwhelmingly relevant to Kevin’s overwhelming idea of blaming Bush for decreased funding on the matter - we’re funding still, just making more money than before.
From what I can gather, federal funding for solar cells dropped 10% from 2001 to 2004 (seems to have been moved to hydrogen fuel research), went back to previous values for 2005-2006, and the 2007 proposed budget is supposed to increase funding to a little under twice the 2001 value.
Surprisingly, we’ve spent ::much: more, nearly 50% more, on solar and wind technology than nuclear. Not quite sure why, given that nuclear’s a pretty much proven field, while a cheap single-layer >30% efficient solar cell may very well be a pipe dream, but that’s for the doctorates to figure out.