When people think about alternative energy resources, and green-tech, they usually thinking about physical and chemical methods to produce new energy, like solar panels and wind turbines.
However, we must remember that we, as humans are far behind the amazing efficiency and power of the energy production in the biological world.
We still cannot met the energy production of simple bacteria, not ot mention the superior efficiency of plants solar energy collectors...
Plants, animals, and bacteria are producing energy from the sun, and simple organic material, in an robust, efficient, low cost measures, and all that while doing many other things as well. Photosynthetic organisms can harvest almost 100 percents of the sun's energy they collect, made turn it into electrical voltage, that use to produce complex organic materials. Animals knows how to burn out the energy from fats and sugars in room temperature, using almost the entire chemical energy of these carbohydrate as useful energy.
Thinking about the amazing capabilities of nature, we must turn our heads towards the ancient innovations of living creatures, and use it to solve our energy problems.
The problem is that most of the effort and funding of biotech research is spent on biomedical and agricultural problems, ignoring the potential of changing our energy markets for good.
In order to let nature teach us how to produce clean cheap and usefull energy, we must increase the research and grants of bio-science studies aimed to achieve a better energy resources.
Unlike physical sciences, biological sciences are much more complex and slow, but as mentioned above, the potential in much higher.
Lets look on some example of where biotech research can be much helpful:
1. biofuels of course - instead of investing in share agriculture techniques or new chmical methods to produce them, we need to get into the biochemical pathways of the plants and animals who produce potential fuels, and genetically engineer them to be better and more easy to harvest.
2. Photosynthesis - as the most efficient form of energy harvesting known, the research is this field must be many folds higher. The interest must be more than just scientific. We can and should use the light harvesting complexes and the electron transport chaines of photsynthestic germs, algae and plants to our purposes. The way to get there is still far away, but some academic breakthroughs made lately are promising.
3. Waste as energy source. Bio-technology can use the power of many bacteria to produce enzymes that can digest virtually everything, to make a huge bioreactors that can break and recycle a lot of organic waste, and use it to produce energy.
These are just few examples of the bio power. The technologies are already here, we just need the courage and the money to make them part of our everyday use.
Why biotech should lead the way toward green energy?
