Spinach powered house by Matthew Coates & Tim Meldrum

Gimme some spinach! We all know that spinach gave Popeye his power, but did you know it could also power your house? Inhabitat featured this fascinating piece about a house designed by Matthew Coates & Tim Meldrum that was the winner of the Cradle to Cradle contest. The house gets its electricity from spinach! Well, to be percise, it actually gets its power by solar energy, via a "solid-state photosynthetic solar based skin, who's main component for generating electricity from the sun is a protein called Photosystem 1, which is derived from spinach."

The system also includes grey and black water recycling and the excess energy developed by the spinach based skin can be used to help power other sources or sent back to the grid. A fascinating concept that will definitely be something to watch as it continues to develop. See a diagram of how it works and read more here.

Comments (1)

The MIT website states that the engineers are able to maintain the protein in the sandwich state for 3 months (not a very long term solar cell) and that such cell is able to only capture 12% of the energy from a high powered laser (that is shining the exactly right wavelength onto the protein for maximum energy output, which the sun will not be doing). I think maybe it is a bit premature to start designing houses based on this level of technology :) Never mind the fact that more energy would probably be harnessed by burning the spinach required to isolate the amount of protein they need for the chip. The coolness of technology lies in the scientist's ability to bridge the organic and the inorganic world for purpose of energy isolation, not in the perceived "greenness" of the spinach powered solar cell.

posted by verasue on June 28th 2007 at 2:32pm
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