'Artificial leaf' eyed as holy grail in energy research

VANCOUVER: Turbo-charging photosynthesis - by which plants and bacteria turn sunlight into food and energy - in an "artificial leaf" could yield a vast commercial power source, scientists said.

Photosynthesis "unfortunately not very efficient," Anne Jones, assistant professor and biochemist at Arizona State University, told the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Vancouver this weekend.

"In fact, all of our current fossil fuels are products of this process," she said. But photosynthesis efficiency "could be boosted to increase food yields or sustainable biofuel production."

The world's energy consumption is expected to surge by 100 percent in the next 40 years.

That is expected even as oil and gas reserves are being used up, according to researchers, who are weighing a range of approaches to harness the power of photosynthesis to power engines.

Scientists said that given the low efficiency of photosynthesis, the top theoretical yield for squeezing energy out of the process with major crops such as wheat or sugar beets would be about five percent.

But if efficiency could be forced up by even a few percentage points, they could be sitting on major biofuel production potential. (AFP)