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danielravennest t1_j4vkt5p wrote

Plants are only about 2% efficient in converting sunlight to usable energy. Solar panels are now commercially available at 22% efficiency.

Most plants don't use sunlight over 10% of the daily peak intensity. So it is quite feasible to do "agrisolar", where panels take most of the sunlight first, and plants below use the rest. This can be either outdoors or in greenhouses with solar roofs.

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way2lazy2care t1_j4vnvkc wrote

This is just a study to see if this effect happened at all, but I think the long term benefit of using plants would be that they can construct themselves. Very little manufacturing involved.

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[deleted] t1_j4vwwnr wrote

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AdagioAffectionate66 t1_j4x412j wrote

Only if there’s money to be made! Otherwise……

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CirenOtter t1_j4xwsrx wrote

Eventually even the capitalists will figure out that a living planet is more profitable long term than a dead planet… right? Right?!

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jtwFlosper t1_j4ygt1v wrote

I fear you are underestimating the effect that wealth has at generating narcissism, and the effect narcissism has at distorting perception

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Looluee t1_j4zemz8 wrote

Don't put the blame on your everyday capitalist lmao.

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danielravennest t1_j4vp8fq wrote

Plants should be used to grow things they are good at, like lumber and food. There are plenty of rooftops and parking lots that can do solar without using any more land, and agrisolar can share land with plants. Trying to make electricity at low efficiency with plants is a waste of space that can be put to better uses.

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Hours-of-Gameplay t1_j4vzb8y wrote

Yea plants taking up space and also providing oxygen, gross

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crazicus t1_j4wf8hs wrote

Monoculture crops for production at scale are far less effective at producing oxygen or sequestering carbon dioxide than native habitats.

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Nearatree t1_j4y7of3 wrote

Ahnd they dun sucked up all my water so I can't make nesquik

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Shilo788 t1_j4w4tk0 wrote

Very narrow minded. Plants have much more to offer.

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[deleted] t1_j4vyffg wrote

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danielravennest t1_j4w14f2 wrote

You've watched The Matrix too many times. Using humans as batteries is an energy-losing proposition.

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way2lazy2care t1_j4w5twk wrote

It's only a waste of space if you can meaningfully use that space. In the article they were using succulents, so in theory you could just plop a handful of these in the desert and wait for them to spread. If you're already installing solar at manufacturing capacity, there's no downside to also having solar that can manufacture itself in situ with no labor also.

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[deleted] t1_j4wt6sj wrote

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way2lazy2care t1_j4wzckp wrote

> Plants, on a large scale and reasonable times, generally can't construct themselves

Compared to manufacturing PV panels they do. Like the scale isn't even comparable. A handful of people can farm a couple thousand acres, where an equivalent solar farm would be on the scale of the largest solar farms in the world. The power output wouldn't be similar, but in terms of effort involved in covering a large area with power generation, the speed you could grow plants is like orders of magnitude in difference. Not to mention that individual plants can provide thousands of seeds which you could then use to propogate thousands more acres.

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Box-o-bees t1_j4vqnbt wrote

>Plants are only about 2% efficient in converting sunlight

I wonder how much faster they would grow if it was increased to say 22%? Would be a crazy cool experiment.

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danielravennest t1_j4w0lq5 wrote

They simply can't. The best that can be done is about 6% for photosynthetic bacteria, who don't need to waste energy making cell walls, roots, and other defining features of plants. Genetically modified bacteria have been made that emit ethanol and diesel molecules, but that only becomes competitive at about $100/barrel for petroleum. Prices haven't been high enough for long enough to get that industry off the ground, and attempts to make the process cheaper have stalled.

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ss3423 t1_j4w6e4p wrote

This doesn't account for heating effects, plants don't just absorb light for component production and aren't the most efficient solar gathering organisms.

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-over9000- t1_j4x5vfi wrote

Yeah! We can even tune it so the solar panels use the light that the plants don't need this way!

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danielravennest t1_j50dvx7 wrote

Silicon panels, which are like 96% of the market, use the whole solar spectrum, from near infra-red to near UV. But they are not completely opaque, some light gets through the cells. For open field solar farms, there are spaces between the rows of panels.

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mde132 t1_j4zl47c wrote

True. Also, now we have proof of concept and can hand it over to the GMO experts to see what they come up with.

Also, if they found some sort of self duplicating hybrid bacteria whatever then we essentially only have to manufacture the encasement etc, not mine the earth... Which is better environmentally, and may have a net lower $/watt production cost in the end with lower efficiency over larger areas. Who knows, it's only proof of concept so far.

Lots of possibilities :)

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MagicaItux t1_j4vnwx8 wrote

Maybe there's a reason it looks like only 2%. The heat from the solar rays for example could help it's capillary system to suck moisture out of the ground (an intensive process).

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danielravennest t1_j4vph7b wrote

The wikipedia article has a breakdown of the efficiency losses. Please go look at it.

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GioTekk t1_j4vtpda wrote

Capillary uses a law of physics, the water essentially sucks itself if I'm not mistaken

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