Two Quick Comments

[chris_gerrib]

Comment The First

From Jay Lake jaylake I get this: artificial leaf is 10 times as efficient as nature. The article makes a radical claim: the chip [the size of a deck of cards] could produce enough electricity to power a house in a developing country for an entire day. Since the device works by generating hydrogen, it would allow the power to be

Comments

[baron_waste]

Though of course I wish Señor Nocera and his invention well, it is an odd but undeniable fact that the common folk of India and Africa have stubbornly refused to use ANYTHING solar-powered, to the despairing undoing of decades and generations of social planners. Inexpensive, mass-produced solar cookers, solar stills to produce fresh water - the benefits were obvious, the plans were ambitious, the results were dismal disaster.

The problem with post-colonialism, as almost every now-independent African nation shows, is that when you can no longer FORCE the beastly natives to improve their quality of life - they don't and won't.

[It's the same problem Western Europe faced a thousand years ago - all well and good to invent things like crop rotation and the moldboard plough, but “that warn't how me Gran'ther done it,” and that was (almost) that! It had to be forced on the peasants by their iron overlords, who knew they'd be bankrupted and overrun if they didn't keep their agrarian productivity up with the Sir Joneses…]

[chris_gerrib]

They say racism is caused by ignorance, and this post is an example of that.

I am actively involved in Rotary, which has a large and active presence in India and Africa - an active presence of local people in local clubs. The Rotarians from those regions tell me that their people are desperate for this kind of development, and they provide me proof. I should also point out that households in developing countries already use electricity, for their (ubiquitous) cell phones, TVs (surprisingly common if frequently third-hand black and white sets) and radios. In short, the benefit of having electricity is clear and unmistakable.

Regarding crop rotation, et. al. - the reason this was resisted in Europe was because Sir Jones was using these tools to reduce his agricultural labor force. The now excess people were then driven from their homes (not infrequently at bayonet-point) to shift for themselves elsewhere.

[baron_waste]

Racist, schmacist. Across three continents and a thousand years, what “race” am I favoring or disparaging? Never mind, it doesn't need to be true… I only know what I've read for decades; I've seen the tinfoil and cardboard solar cookers, the molded-Mylar parabolic mirrors, the glass passive-desalination greenhouses… all left in UNESCO's hands by the villagers whose women don't like to cook outdoors and who have always got their water from that stream, though it's fouler every year…

Intelligent people of every nationality know what needs to be done. It keeps not happening.

The good news about this artificial leaf is that no one has to DO anything to make it work, so it might end up being useful after all.

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[chris_gerrib]

Gordon - I don't know what success or lack thereof UNESCO has had with solar ovens. Frankly, I didn't know they were using solar ovens. I *do* know what success Rotary has had with solar ovens, which is a lot. I also know that Rotary doesn't give money to governments - we give money to individuals and organizations on the ground. Rotary is very aware of the kleptocracies of some African countries.

But this is *not* a solar oven! This is a power source to power something that the locals want and *can't* power otherwise! In a lot of third-world countries, people sell time at an electrical outlet to charge portable electronics, and sell car batteries rigged to work as power for TVs.

Even more importantly, a 10-fold increase in solar efficiency tied to the ability to generate hydrogen means first-world solar becomes radically more efficient and useful.

Elon Musk (who I think is the source of your quote) is correct about *some* countries in Africa. He's silent about Asia. There's a lot of "wogs" in Asia too.