I think there is a lot more promise here, than in the fusion arena, which E. O. Wilson recently described as "like waiting for the Second Coming."

Bill S's lab-equipment site has a great article on new advances in integrating organics (think pigments) with the inorganic solar cell or semiconductors ...or something along those lines.


http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2014/10/material-brings-hybrid-solar-cells-closer

Quote:
Researchers have developed a new method for harvesting the energy carried by particles known as dark spin-triplet excitons with close to 100 percent efficiency, clearing the way for hybrid solar cells that could far surpass current efficiency limits.

The team, from the Univ. of Cambridge, have successfully harvested the energy of triplet excitons, an excited electron state whose energy in harvested in solar cells, and transferred it from organic to inorganic semiconductors. To date, this type of energy transfer had only been shown for spin-singlet excitons. The results are published in the journal Nature Materials.


"...dark spin-triplet excitons" ...oh my!

~ smile

Pyrolysis creates reduced carbon! ...Time for the next step in our evolutionary symbiosis with fire.