AN "ARTIFICIAL leaf" could one day be used to provide near limitless low-cost energy using water as a fuel.
While there were substantial technical problems to overcome, the use of solar power and water represented the only way that growing world energy demand could be met, said a research professor from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
We will need to double energy output by 2050 to meet expected demand, said Dan Nocera, the Henry Dreyfus professor of energy and professor of chemistry at MIT.
Prof Nocera was keynote speaker at a meeting organised by research funding body Science Foundation Ireland (SFI).
This doubling of energy supply could only barely be met by combining all the wind, hydro and biomass power available, provided we also built 8,000 new nuclear power plants, he told the 400 research scientists who attended yesterday's meeting in Kilkenny.
"It is all about the discovery of new materials and processes to make it affordable."
The goal would be to "personalise" energy production by combining solar power and a chemical "artificial leaf" to produce hydrogen energy for the home and to power the family car.
Five litres of water and 2½ hours of solar energy would be sufficient to meet a full day's energy demand, he said. "We flew to the moon. Are you telling me we can't make a cheap, personalised energy system?" he asked.
Earlier, NUI Galway's Prof Chris Dainty described how advances in computerised optics meant that researchers should be able to provide "super vision" for those in need of spectacles.
"Your eyes are not very good optical instruments," he said, given the many flaws and imperfections in their surface.
His research team was working on "adaptive optics" which used computers to reprocess a blurred image. It had transformed the results from ground-based telescopes in astronomy.
"This can be applied to the eye," he said. "When you replace a lens, instead of taking a stock lens why not give a customised lens. Why not make their sight better than it has ever been," he asked.
Scientists would have to begin finding new sources of research funding given reduced Government spending, SFI director general Dr Frank Gannon told the meeting. "It has to happen," he said. The expected tight budgets in the next two or three years meant researchers should begin looking for external funding, he said.