The Weird Science Behind Living Solar Panels

Special thanks to @sci-inspi for Chlamydomonas microscope footage, @neuralsurfer for the photosynthesis animation, and @bloombioeconomy5649 for the EU project BLOOM footage.

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[charlesgates]

Years ago, Arizona farmers were doing algae. There are a bunch of huge dairy and beef farms. So, feed the algae the, ,,crap..then harvest the algae for feed. Great circle

[danirizary]

My plan is to hide while the algae revolution fights the robot revolution, then welcome the winner as our new overlords.

[navinvent]

As an Asian guy, Algae being scummy seems a weird concept, it to me is like always been associated with Agaragar, a jello alternative common in asia and spirulina a superfood, and seaweed. Algae growing on roof giving electricity, with overgrown stuff being then removed, on a tap for a soup or jelly seems like a win win to me.

[phatman]

Can't wait to charge my mushroom laptop on my algae solar panels.

[esra_erimez]

What kind of math do fish like? Algae-bra

[gordonstallings]

There are some living organisms that are very effective at separating charges. I'm thinking of the electric eels, that can (intermittently) deliver high voltages (600V) with significant current (1A). What a breakthrough if this process could be developed in some organism that obtains its energy from sunlight!

[MrJustinOtis]

Excellent video, as always. Something that might be helpful to incorporate into your videos would be assigning a Technology Readiness Level score to whatever the topic is for each one. This is something that NASA does for assessing how far along a particular new technology is, and how close it is to being able to be fielded. Something like that would really be helpful for viewers to understand if the particular topic of a video is still something that's theoretical, been demonstrated in the lab, or is being scaled and ready for mass market deployment.

[dontbanmebrodontbanme]

This kinda reminds me of aquaponics, where you have a symbiotic relationship between the fish and the farming that can be done based on their poop and the feeding of the fish by the left over food we produce, which feeds the black soldier fly larva. This looks like super early stages, so let's see where it is in 10 years.

[dudefuude]

If you combine the cells with high lipid algae you may be able to make the photovoltic charge and filter off some algae for biodiesel using the same device. The challenge is keeping the bioreactor chemistry going without harming the photovoltic cell efficiency. This is probably not something the homeowner or small business would want to deal with, but an energy generation business that can power via solar cells during the day and via a biodiesel generator / turbine at night might be quite happy.

[grkuntzmd]

Now if someone could come up with an algae-bacteria combination that produced hydrogen while eating plastic, that would be a win-win-win-win.

[MarcoGPUtuber]

2:35 Isn't Tin supposed to be Sn? Ti is Titanium

[leax_Flame]

Keeping with the Pokemon theme. We need breeders to make the best algee.

[shawnr]

Thank you for the commentary.
Yes we should explore this even if all we find are deadends.
Knowing what is in each direction is important.

[Young_Spoon]

Matt can you upload a behind the scenes video of you rehearsing really long difficult words? 😂

[aliasrehbar]

The algae with bacteria setup is AMAZING. We need more startups following this route 🔥🔥

[danfrancisjr]

Matt, love your channel. Have you ever thought about giving a "state of renewables" yearly assessment? Maybe a video once or twice a year ranking progress towards practicality. A quick retrospective of all promising tech you covered in a year etc.

[ronaldheath]

A guy named Paul Woods spent his life developing algae. He founded a company named Algenol, which was based in Fort Myers. His algae continuously produced ethanol from ocean water and waste CO2. The process also created 2 gallons of fresh water for every gallon of fuel alcohol. Unfortunately, he accepted funding from an oil company, so as soon as he put up his first fueling station for his pilot plant, the oil company had enough shares to shut him down.

[michael]

The hydrogen algae idea has legs in my opinion. We started burning oil because it sometimes came up when we would dig for water. In other words it's a waste product, or it started that way.

[zionosphere]

I like how easy this would be to do. Growing algae can be done with plastic tubes and pots and pans. Add in the bacteria into something like a recipe, record the data into diagrams and charts, and it seems like a mix of magic and technology. I worry though that people won't understand my intentions.

[vigneshkarthi]

Bro i met the professor how doing these research on it. I met him on 2019 at the renewable energy submit but he speak about research on inorganic solar cell after his lecture i asked him anyother way to make solar cell using organic substances he said "we are currently working on alage and green related single cell organisms".

They made it.