Tiny Quantum Computers in Bacteria = Efficient Solar Power
by Christine Lepisto, Berlin 
on 04.15.07
Image: "Pediastra, a flat colony of green algae", Wim van Egmond
Scientists at Berkeley report a breakthrough in the riddle of how bacteria can convert sunlight to energy at efficiencies nearing 100%. And the answer is more elegant and amazing than you will believe. Imagine your favorite Sci-fi character trapped in a maze. The future of the planet depends upon finding the fastest way out. Utilizing their quantum super-powers, they run all possible combinations of the maze simultaneously in parallel universes, calculating the best path before committing to any. Hurrah, the planet is saved! The truth behind quantum physics is always more complex than the sci-fi version, but reality is not too far off.
Scientists have struggled to explain how plants can convert sunlight with high efficiencies. In the conventional model, a plant has many chlorophyll molecules, with only a few that are receptive to each specific bundle of energy that hits the plant. If electrons are hopping around looking for the right place to dock, it is a bit like trying to find the right path out of the maze. Energy should be wasted in each attempt which fails at a dead-end.
Now scientists led by chemistry prof Graham Flemming and lead author Gregory Engel at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of California, Berkeley, have achieved a breakthrough advance in understanding the photosynthesis process. The team fired ultra-short laser pulses at the proteins bacteria use in photosynthesis. The proteins were frozen to more than 300°F below zero, which makes the quantum effects easier to observe and reduces the "noise" due to greater motion in warmer molecules. What they found is quantum waves of energy exploring different excitation possibilities in the protein at the same time. Like a tiny quantum computer, the protein answers the question: which is the right path to convert this energy at highest efficiency? The scientists, and peers in the field, expect that a similar phenomenon will be found in plants, explaining nature's efficiency in using sunlight.
Understanding the role of quantum physics in efficient use of the sun's energy may lead to break-throughs in solar power technology. We know plants use solar energy 3 to 5 times better than the current state-of-the-art in silicon technology. If we can learn how they do it, perhaps mankind can do it better too.
Via ::HUGG and Turbulentissues
Image via ::Wim van Egmond "Pediastra, a flat colony of green algae."
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This could change everything. Congress: demand 80% reduction in CO2 by 2050 so technology based on this gets a BOOST.
This makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
I agree about the 80% reduction in CO2. People are making a stand and it's time for the government to take notice! They do serve the people after all.
"We know plants use solar energy 3 to 5 times better than the current state-of-the-art in silicon technology."
Please excuse my ignorance, but we do?
I thought they just came up with PVs that were 40% efficient. How do you get 3-5 times higher than that?
I also thought that when you looked at leaves, they captured around 2-3% of the solar energy that hits them vs. 20% or so for current PV technology.
I must be missing something, so if you could let me know where the 3-5 times number you state comes from (what exactly are they comparing), I would appreciate it.
===ed. note:===
Your discussion above relates to energy conversion efficiency, while the subject of the Berkeley research is the more narrowly defined conversion of absorbed sunlight into electrical energy. See annrep_incite1 for an analysis dating from 2004 which compares directly the 97% efficiency of green plants with the 9-14% efficiency of available solar panels. 3 to 5 times is the author's over the thumb estimate assuming (generously) that commercially available solar panels in 2007 are approximately twice as efficient as the standard in 2004. Perhaps a TH reader knowledgeable in quantum physics or solar technology can shed some more light on the topic. Please note also that 40% efficient solar cells to which you refer remain available in the laboratory only, not commercially available (still grounds for hope though!)
I love solar power I think over the next few years it's going to be exploding even more... as performance of solar panels goes up people are going to be adopting it everywhere they can... after all it's free energy :) BTW here is more solar power information -> Solar Power
Hmm. My friends into engineering and I always speculate about how cool quantum computing will be, and how it will probably change everything we assume about modern computers (For example, you may be able to unplug a quantum computer and pick up where you left off. Or, larger databases are searched more efficiently than smaller databases counter-intuitively.). Strange to think we're surrounded by quantum computers already!
Thanks for the additional information and link.
"The proteins were frozen to more than 300 degrees below zero"
do you mean
kelvin -
which does not go negagtive
Fahrenheit -
-300 Fahrenheit is not nearly cold enough to realy start observing quantum effects
celsius -
only goes down to -273, kelvin
"The proteins were frozen to more than 300 degrees below zero"
do you mean
kelvin -
which does not go negagtive
Fahrenheit -
-300 Fahrenheit is not nearly cold enough to really start observing quantum effects
celsius -
only goes down to -273, kelvin
===ed. Note===
The study was done at 77 Kelvin, colder than -300 F or about -200 C.
This does indeed look like an imortant step for solar energy. I wish the story was written by an adult though. Aside from the cheeky,offensive and illogical "more elegant than you will believe" and the silly SCFI scenario-best is too subjective to be a matter of computation ,however many parrallel-if such exist -universes are factored. Optimum might be testable. Throwing in the word quantum every other sentence or so tells me nothing about the process these resarchers are trying to describe.
If they can get the efficiency of solar (way) up, and the costs down it may become more than just a liberal wet dream. If this new technology turns out to be even half as good as it seems we may have cheap clean power (id still rather have a ZPM), and I can get my house off of the grid.
Getting off oil, coal and other fossil fuels involves some lifestyle change. GM threatened with extinction, came up with a V-8 Camero, a new Cadillac no one can afford! and an "improved" Corvette at 8 mpg, and 230 Mph, on roads found where? Americans, threatened with personal bankruptcy and while watching the total collapse of Capitalism in their country, clamored for enough credit to buy off foreclosed McMansions in the suburbs, the least environmentally friendly and most expensive way to live! The great republican depression, about to strengthen as government loans from China are no longer approved, will teach the necessary change through astoundingly hard times and a paradigm shift of monstrous proportion. OPEC greed will lead the way, oil shortages combined with ultra-high oil prices will pound in the nails on the coffin of the "American Dream" and the U.S.A. will follow Detroit City into third-worldship. Except for the very expensive, soon to be defaulted loans from China we are buffered by, we are still sliding down, soon to lose world confidence in our monetary system supremacy, fail to man and finance our mighty military machine, and go begging among the Americas for our next fix of fuel and fatty foods! In fact, we are there, NOW!