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Why are vegetables smarter than people?

K

Kevin Schmida

Jan 1, 1970
0
I am no engineer. My background is in biology, and I've taken a course on
plant physiology. Why are plants so much more efficient at capturing solar
energy and converting it to stored chemical potential energy than we are?
This is despite the fact that they can only capture and convert light energy
from a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. We should be able to outwit the
witless. Can't we do better than PV?
 
G

G. R. L. Cowan

Jan 1, 1970
0
Kevin said:
I am no engineer. My background is in biology, and I've taken a course on
plant physiology. Why are plants so much more efficient at capturing solar
energy and converting it to stored chemical potential energy than we are?

Your premise is false. They are much *less* efficient.

The gap might be narrower if the form in which man-made
solar energy machinery stored chemical potential energy were the same,
hydrocarbon, as what plants do, but it would still be wide.


--- Graham Cowan, former hydrogen fan
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html --
boron: how individual mobility gains nuclear cachet
 
M

m II

Jan 1, 1970
0
Kevin said:
I am no engineer. My background is in biology, and I've taken a course on
plant physiology. Why are plants so much more efficient at capturing solar
energy and converting it to stored chemical potential energy than we are?
This is despite the fact that they can only capture and convert light energy
from a tiny fraction of the EM spectrum. We should be able to outwit the
witless. Can't we do better than PV?




I just finished a very nice salad. Who is the smarter one NOW?






mike
 
L

Laurie

Jan 1, 1970
0
Kevin Schmida said:
Why are plants so much more efficient at capturing solar
energy and converting it to stored chemical potential energy than we are?
Maybe a billion years of successful evolution vs. a few decades of
fumbling by we Psychotic Apes?
But, let the plants try to develop war, theft, slavery, sexism, rape,
torture, religion, politics, global ecorape, ... we have the market cornered
on those.

Laurie
 

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