Thanks to researchers at University of California (Berkeley) who have been working with algae, we may one day be producing hydrogen from solar energy via these tiny organisms.
Wired News’s article on Mutant Algae is Hydrogen Factory (PDF) broke one of the principle rules of scientific research though – they reported this story before the researchers have published a paper on it. Big no-no.
In any case, the researchers are said to be near, or have possibly reached, the 10% efficiency threshold for converting light into hydrogen. They hope to continue breeding new strains and possibly genetically engineer them to produce even more efficiently. The differentiating characteristic in their current strain is “truncated chlorophyll antennae within the chloroplasts”. This makes the algae a lighter shade, allowing more light through each layer of algae, allowing more cells to photosynthesize.
Check for details in the article.. I don’t like reproducing facts in my own garbled writing.
A very interesting tech that has been waiting for a breakthrough in for a long time – previously these cultures were only around 1% efficient or less, according to a Popsci article I read a few years ago..
