Artificial Photosynthesis

Picture from Scienceheath

Let's imagine, being able to harness solar energy like a leaf, without the baggage of CO2 emissions. By mimicking the natural photosynthesis process taking place in a leaf, scientists are studying how the process can be artificially replicated and transformed into a technology to harness solar power (Tachibana et al, 2012) . 

While solar energy could be tapped via biomass formation, the efficiency is low and the scale is inadequate to replace fossil fuels on a global scale and provide the huge amount of power needed to sustain future energy demand. By leveraging on the photosynthetic process which essentially involves the highly efficient chemical reaction of splitting water into its constituent elements, hydrogen and oxygen could be produced. The hydrogen generated from solar-driven water-splitting has the potential to be a clean and abundant energy source. If successful, the technology can be installed in areas such as deserts that receive high-levels of solar radiation (Barber, 2007).

Nonetheless, water-splitting devices that can harvest visible light so far have a low solar-to-hydrogen efficiency of around 0.1%. Recently, a group of scientists uncovered that cobalt(II) oxide (CoO) nanoparticles can carry out overall water splitting with a markedly increased efficiency of around 5%. (Liao et al, 2013). This discovery would hopefully contribute significantly towards the development of solar-fuel technologies.

Meanwhile, it is heartening that the energy industry has already been thinking about future energy scenarios and how CO2 emissions can be reduced while meeting future energy needs in a sustainable manner. Here's a video from Shell about the energy situation that mankind could face by 2050, and some of the strategies that can be adopted.