For many years now researchers have been looking into plants and how they generate energy through the natural photosynthetic process in order to better improve our own current solar power generation. The primary reason for this interest in plant life is due to the fact that plants are known to successfully transfer and convert nearly 100% of the sun’s energy for growth purposes, whereas top high efficiency photovoltaic solar panels available today can operate at an energy conversion rate of barely over 40% at peak level

In order to achieve this higher energy conversion and processing power scientists have been looking heavily at the protein structures found within plants and how they operate. Thanks to recent research utilizing highly-concentrated laser beams researchers now know that plant life can achieve and maintain its top efficiency rate utilizing a form of quantum-physics where the cellular structure of the plant allows the energy to search out and only take the most efficient paths possible from point A to point B. It is hoped that by studying the protein structures of plants we may one day hopefully be able to recreate this quantum energy transfer using artificial building materials and thus generate solar panels that could power virtually any device cheaply and effectively.

At the same time other research is currently being done into utilizing plant products for other power purposes. Exploration of crystallized pea sugars, for example, has yielded the discovery that an electrical current is generated should these crystals be simply placed on a gold sheet under the sun. While the electrical current generated through this basic experiment was miniscule at best it demonstrated that there is in fact potential to somehow create a blend of biological and artificial solar energy production structures in order to help reduce the overall costs solar energy faces as well as potentially boost the energy conversion rates of our solar panels without needing extensive and expensive additional materials.

As of right now the success rate of blending biological and solar energy production methods is quite low, however at the same time progress is being made regularly into this. The recent discovery of the energy generation and transfer capabilities of carbon nanotubes by researchers at MIT may also help further this field by allowing greater application of this concept in developing an artificial cellular structure to mimic that of photosynthetic plant life, however at this stage it is still too late to tell how this may develop in the future.

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