Many farmers already produce renewable energy by
growing corn to make ethanol. It’s big
news for everybody that solar cells can be created from agriculture wastes such
as cut grass and dead leaves, which have been proved by Andreas Mershin, a
researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. An increasing number
of farmers and ranchers are now adding to their incomes by harvesting the wind
that blows across their land to make electricity. And new options are becoming
available.
Renewable energy and farming are a winning
combination. Wind, solar, and biomass energy can be harvested forever,
providing farmers with a long-term source of income. Recalling high school
biology classes, he said that you must remember a process known as
photosynthesis, where plants use to turn sunlight into energy. Mershin has
discovered a process that extracts the photosynthesizing molecules, called
Photosystem I, from plant matter. Photosystem I contains chlorophyll that is
the protein responsible for converting photons to a flow of electrons.
Biomass energy is produced from plants and organic
wastes—everything from crops, trees, and crop residues to manure. Crops grown
for energy could be produced in large quantities, just as food crops are. The
plant’s molecules are spread on a glass substrate that is covered in a forest
of zinc oxide nanowires and titanium dioxide “sponges”, after striking by
sunlight the panels both the titanium dioxide and the new material absorb light
and turn it into electricity, and the nanowires carry the electricity away.
While corn is currently the most widely used energy
crop, native prairie grasses such as switchgrass or fast-growing trees such as
poplar and willow are likely to become the most popular in the future. These
perennial crops require less maintenance and fewer inputs than do annual row
crops such as corn, so they are cheaper and more sustainable to produce.
The electricity produced by such a process has a very
low efficiency of 0.1%, which has the capacity to light a single LED light. In
order to illuminate the entire house, the efficiency of 1 or 2% is needed.
Mershin said that the team will concentrate on increasing the efficiency of
such cells. Basic difference between the conventional photovoltaic cells and
these green photovoltaic cells are that the layer of silicon has been replaced
by the suspension of photosynthesizing molecules, which appear like an electric
nanoforest.
The options that make the most sense for you depend on
your local renewable resources, energy markets, and the types of support
available from federal and state government. A growing number of states are
requiring electricity companies to provide some power from renewable sources,
creating new markets.
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