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GreenTech Week in Review
Green Technology Featured Articles
June 08, 2013

GreenTech Week in Review

By Cheryl Kaften
TMCnet Contributor

In green technology news this week, it sounds more like a sci-fi movie plot than a solution to a world crisis, but a scientist at Harvard say that his new “artificial leaf” can power the Earth through a process similar to natural photosynthesis—with no need for fossil fuels.


 “This is not some far-off idea of the future. It's reality, and the subject of a jury-prize-winning film in the GE Focus Forward Film Competition,” stated a report from ABC News. Jared P. Scott and Kelly Nyks' short film, "The Artificial Leaf," showcases chemist and inventor Daniel Nocera, a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His laboratory at Harvard focuses on the “basic mechanisms of energy conversion.”

Nocera's “leaf” actually is a silicon wafer covered with catalysts. The leaves “use sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen components,” ABC News said. Gases then produce electricity, and it becomes an economical solution. The artificial leaf is cheaper than solar panels but not inexpensive. Hydrogen from a solar panel and electrolysis unit can currently be made for about $7 per kilogram; the artificial leaf would come in at $6.50. Now, Nocera plans on reducing costs, so that the technology can be accessed by many people.

Meanwhile, another finding also suggested that photosynthesis may save the planet. Carbon dioxide is a vital part of the photosynthesis process. Plants need it to live, and those plants exposed to higher CO2 levels have shown remarkable increases in growth, colonization, types of flora and the ability to withstand other environmental stresses—even where the soil is dry and lacking nutrients. Indeed, an analysis of arid regions around the globe finds that a CO2 “fertilization effect” caused a gradual greening from 1982 to 2010.

Focusing on the southwestern corner of North America, Australia’s Outback, the Middle East and some parts of Africa, Randall Donohue of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Canberra, Australia, and his colleagues— Michael L. Roderick and Graham D. Farquhar of The Australian National University in Canberra — developed a mathematical model to predict the extent of the CO2 fertilization effect. They then tested this prediction by studying satellite imagery and teasing out the influence of carbon dioxide on greening from other factors such as precipitation, air temperature, the amount of light and land-use changes.

The satellite data showed an 11-percent increase in foliage after adjusting the data for precipitation, yielding “strong support for our hypothesis,” the team reports. They say that, in addition to greening dry regions, the CO2 fertilization effect could switch the types of vegetation that dominate in those regions. “Trees are re-invading grass lands, and this could quite possibly be related to the CO2 effect,” Donohue said, adding, “Even if nothing else in the climate changes as global CO2 levels rise, we will still see significant environmental changes because of the CO2 fertilization effect.”

Finally, the other shoe has dropped in Europe. Despite the best efforts of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was determined to put a damper on the dispute, the European Commission announced this week that it is imposing anti-dumping tariffs on solar panels manufactured in China. The move will almost certainly incite retaliation from the PRC.

"Our action today is an emergency measure to give life-saving oxygen to a business sector in Europe that is suffering badly from this dumping," said European Commissioner for Trade Karel De Gucht. "This is not protectionism. Rather it is about ensuring international trade rules also apply to Chinese companies."

Levies of 11.8 percent— a rate much lower rate than originally had been contemplated—will be enforced two months, a step that De Gucht hopes will prod China to compromise. Without a deal, tariffs will go up to an average of 47.6 percent in August.





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