As strange as it may sound, scientists are using phytonutrients found in spinach plants to create a new green technology. The idea seems logical, spinach plants already turned sunlight into electricity using photosynthesis, why not just use the plant to make a modern day solar panel? Science is just asking nature to reveal its secrets, which is just what scientists did to come up with this new solar panel. They saw what nature was doing right and used that to create their own version. Modern scientists are too often trying to be better than nature than just learning from what nature has been doing right for so long.
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| This shows the process of photosynthesis |
Here are some questions I had:
1. Is spinach the only plant that you could use to make these solar panels?
2. Will technology like this advance in the future, why or why not?
3.Why didn't scientists think of using this kind of technology before? Are there more things in nature that scientists could learn from?
This is a really interesting idea Annemarie! I agree, it is wonderful that the scientists are finally coming up with a way that we can use nature to help ourselves instead of just destroying it in our search for a power source. I really hope that this ends up working and saving the environment, as well as giving us an alternate source of energy that will, for the time being, act as a renewable resource that will hopefully not harm the environment. If this spinach idea ends up working, I will gladly use this type of power to fuel my home someday, as it does not harm the environment!
ReplyDeleteI still have a couple questions though:
1) Could this have a negative environmental impact someday?
2) If we use spinach as a power source with the same intensity that we use fossil fuels, will spinach ever become a non-renewable resource? If so, how can we stop this from happening?
3) In relataion to Annemarie's first question, why is spinach the plant of choice right now to provide energy?
I too, think this article is very interesting. I am confused as well about why spinach was used for the solar panels. I think that scientists are finally realizing that nature can provide them with materials that can support our need for energy. I don't think that spinach could ever become the new fuel source we use because I don't believe it is as efficient as other possible sources, nor do I think it could ever stay renewable, because people also use spinach for food.
ReplyDeleteI have a couple of unaswered questions of my own:
1.Do you think that spinach will become a new source of energy?
2. When do you think that we will have a new reliable energy source?
3. How much more time do you think we have before we have to find a new reliable source of energy?
Wow! That's great. I think it is really nice that they have found a new way to get energy from something that will keep the earth green no matter how much we use it. If they keep finding things like this to use for energy than we could eventually use only things that will not pollute the earth. This could lead to something amazing.
ReplyDeleteHere is another artilce about this. It also says that they are creating a sort of "spinach sandwhich" that could power laptops and cell phones!
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2004/spinach-0915.html
Hello eveyone, my appolagies for not commenting sooner, although i would like to say that i think that this is a great idea! Just as Annemarie said, it's fantastic that scientists are finally taking the gif that God gave them, and putting it to good use! I am really interested in these pannels, maybe if they are an official product when i am older, i will buy some!! Anyhow, i found this article that is about the same thing! So cool :)
ReplyDeletehttp://www.newscientist.com/article/dn6434-spinach-could-power-better-solar-cells.html