Photovoltaic Cell from Plant Proteins

TheSync writes "FuturePundit has a story about work at MIT to develop a photovoltaic cell from spinach chloroplast proteins to generate electricity. These cells convert 12% of the light energy into electricity, and researchers hope to reach 20% efficiency, better than commercial silicon solar cells."

Business plan

[simonecaldana]

1) Develop spinach based photovoltaic cells
2) Use Popeye in the logo
3) Profit!

Spinich growing space ships in the future?

[scupper]

Wow, can you imagine giant cultivating ships for spinich for conversion into solar cell arrays? Would the first ship be called the USS Popeye? The companion ship the "Olive Oil"?

Watch out biotech patents

[samjam]

Well.... spinach, eh?

They'll be bio-hackers trying to crack the genetic drm; or taking illegal cuttings to try and increase the power they get without paying more money to the patent licensee.

Or maybe high-level UV will mutate the plant to become profific and it will spread like triffids and overpower the grid.

I really want to be able to grow more power when I need it, and if I have too much I can eat some, for kicks.

Sam