Friday, March 7, 2014

Good morning,

We have talked a lot about alternative fuels in Living Green because sooner or later, whether it is because of peak oil or pollution, the world is going to have to rely on them.

One of the most promising but also most difficult alternative fuel puzzles is hydrogen. If someone could figure out a cheap and most importantly efficient way of separating hydrogen from oxygen in water, humankind would have a nearly inexhaustible, near-zero polluting energy source. It would quite literally revolutionize the world.

So far that puzzle seems as far away from being solved as it ever did. Up until very recently.

You had better scroll down!

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Your Living Green editor

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Two Canberra scientists believe they have made a major breakthrough in how to best produce hydrogen which can be used as a clean and renewable energy source.

Professors Rob Stranger and Ron Pace from the Research School of Chemistry at the Australian National University have used computer modeling to reveal the molecular structure of the photosynthesis reaction site in plants.

Professor Pace says the discovery takes a page out of nature's handbook, for the first time identifying the specific water molecules in a plant's photosystem that are converted into oxygen.

"Nature very early on in the evolutionary process on Earth figured out how to do this particular piece of chemistry with close to 100 per cent efficiency," he said.

Professor Stranger says the work offers clues as to how scientists can create alternative fuel.

"If we can steal nature's secrets and understand how the oxygen-evolving-complex performs its chemistry, then we can learn to make hydrogen much more efficiently, and hydrogen is the fuel for a totally renewable fuel future."

"Our work confirms the OEC structure and means researchers can progress new fuel developments based on photosynthesis," he said.