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Discovery: Artificial Photosynthesis

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Artificial Photosynthesis

16/07/2012 GMT

BBC World Service - Discovery, Artificial Photosynthesis

Prof Andrea Sella reports on the race to better nature at harnessing the sun's energy.

Prof Andrea Sella reports on the race to better nature at harnessing the sun's energy, using cheap inorganic chemistry to turn photons into useable fuels.

Chemist Andrea Sella explores the current race to do photosynthesis better than nature ever achieved. 

In just a few hundred years mankind has burnt fossil fuels that had taken natural photosynthesis billions of years to create.

Now, around the world hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on the race to develop a robust, cheap and efficient way to turn the light from the sun into fuels we can use. 

At a time when politicians everywhere debate the economic and climatic burdens of our future energy needs, such a "solar fuel" would be a genuinely novel alternative energy.

(Image: Some beech leaves. Credit: Martin Dohrn /Science Photo Library)

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