Leaves and plants are nature's solar panels the first step
in photosynthesis is to change sunlight into a little bit
of electricity, that then, gets converted into the processes
of life. If we manage to somehow hijack the molecules that
are responsible for photosynthesis in plants and other
photosynthetic organisms, and use them to generate
electricity for our own needs, this would represent a
fantastic and disruptive new step in the way we generate
solar power or electricity in general. So imagine if the raw
material for a solar panel would be something that you
normally think of as trash, and you actually pay people to
take away. Imagine that your grass clippings can become
the active ingredient in a solar panel that you can create
in your own home. The way that you would do it is take
something green and extract the protein that is at the
center of photosynthesis. That is not very hard, it's not as
hard as it sounds anyway; the hard part is once you've
extracted this protein, how do you stabilize it and how do
you make sure that it still continues operating - continues
living, in a sense - inside of a solar panel,  while normally
it is used to living inside of a plant. That is a problem that
we have attacked here at the lab, and after many years of
research we've managed to make the process of extracting
this protein and stabilizing it and putting it on a surface
that is made in a way that allows for a photovoltaic
effect to happen, to be very easy. So the dream is to
eventually be able to send people just the stabilizing
powder that is benign and inexpensive and entirely easy
to work with and has a long shelf-life and doesn't mind
being transported by truck over un-improved roads.
And then all the people who would be interested in doing
this have to do is find some kind of substrate, some kind of
piece of metal, let's say this, or a piece of glass, and use
any of the various protocols that we have described into
making this a little rougher so it has a higher surface area,
so they can capture more light and have higher efficiency,
soak it in the green goo that they've added the stabilizing
peptides to, and that's basically it. After that you can connect
a couple wires and charge a battery, use it to illuminate
something - you've got electricity from the sunlight.
And the idea is because we have lowered the difficulty
involved in making solar power that we're going to allow
crowds, and one hopes thousands of people, to try it
and figure out what works for them and what local materials
they can find, perhaps in their backyard or they can find it
in the junkyard, what works for them to become not only
consumers of electricity but also producers of electricity
for themselves. And if they are really good at it they can
start selling it to others.
