Good evening everyone I did
accompany from this map that in
reality is perhaps the most character
so important about this talk now
then we try to involve her who how
I had it was a child at the beginning
from the 70s
maybe you will remember with pleasure like me
I remember with pleasure on Sundays
of the first months of 1974 when
suddenly in the children we discovered
that the city could have a face
also different because the streets are
empty means completions
motorized so we could play in
half the road to the bicycle
scooter roller skates without
worry about these traffic too
they are photos taken in Bologna in those
years as you can see there are
population has lived those moments
often with a kind of festive atmosphere
popular pulling out the means of
more and more bizarre locomotion
you see that tandem trek
they do not say in Italian or heard
also the way a bit so provocative
like the characteristic of those years
like this guy who drinks a
glass of wine susan coffee table in
half of the wings at the door zamboni images
that we struggle to think well today
the adults of that time is definitely i
then governments probably will not
they remember those with the same pleasure
moments because all this was due
at the first major economic crisis of
after World War II the one that stopped
a development slowed down strongly
uninterrupted that there had been in the second
post-war the glorious thirty years is the
reason for this so it was linked to the
fact that the countries of the western world
industrialized ones found themselves
all of a sudden without more energy without it
more oil to keep going
own cars not just cars
but just the industrial machine
this for some economic choices but
especially country policies
oil producers who decided to
block the world’s supplies
industrialized western lies of
facing a striking fact that is the
fact that its economy and therefore
his lifestyle was strongly
conditioned by the oil depended
entirely from the oil which therefore for
satisfy their needs
energetic
we were turning to oil like
almost
the only source of energy that is the
energy needs of humanity today
in 2017 if estimated in the order 17
terawatt 17 terawatt talking
scientifically it means 17 thousand
billions of yahoo
per second an amount of energy
huge that we consume per second
let’s try to understand how big it is
this energy
let’s consider a one
natural phenomenon of great power e
Niagara Falls one of the three
waterfalls to deny at most the most
beautiful probably this to iron
horse well the power of this that
of the waterfall in the race is not so much
in height they are only 50 meters but in the
width then in scope to
amount of water that continuously
pours from above into the river below
through this fall of 50 meters
well with these numbers available the
volume of water and 2 million liters
at the second and the height the equation of the
physics allows us to calculate
easily the power dissipated that
sum roughly to a gigawatt a
inert cells the characteristic power
of a type power plant
nuclear or coal of medium size
roughly well we take this waterfall
and triples to the height agreed by
50 let ‘s make it 150 meters for
understand the tower once and a half
some donkeys since we are all here
in Bologna, we do not just take the front
from the 800 meters of the royal waterfall la
let’s make 4,700 long
kilometers therefore the distance that
between boston and seattle in one
waterfall of the kind the amount of water
which passes in a second of 12 billion
of liters
agree that it is roughly a
empty the largest lake in an hour
agree this is a waterfall of
this size waterfall climate that you
it extends along the entire border between states
united and canada that at this scale
so much is the amount of energy
that humanity consumes in a second
short where we take this energy
we take this energy for it
87 percent from fossil fuels
even today, 40 years after the crisis
energy we still use for the 87 for
one hundred fossil fuels per
feed our system
then coal natural gas and oil
as a first consequence because we
we burn this these these from these
fuels we burn them as before
consequence we produce a lot of
co2 carbon dioxide because it is one
of combustion products is not
say carbonic that we produce a year
there are 36 gigatonnelles 36 billion
tons that are a quantity
noteworthy right for an example with
a quantity of gas thus at temperature
and pressure environment we could fill
a cylinder based on the circle
Muraria di bologna as a height of 3,500 km
that is, 35 times the height of the atmosphere
it is a considerable amount but not
so big and all in all if
we consider the amount of co2 that we
we produce living beings animal plants
human beings continuously with the
breathing
the problem is that the earth system
this excess quantity does not know
managing it can not absorb it and
therefore it accumulates gradually
in the atmosphere and provokes what we
we know as a problem of
global warming but this is not
the only point is another important point
to consider that oil is one
raw material
precious that the earth has produced
it is accumulated in hundreds of millions of
years under the ground and we are
cheerfully burning ok for
warm up to keep going on
our system
this raw and precious material
because at the base of chemical synthesis
of many substances and products and materials
that we continually use are you
sitting on the useless plastic that there
let’s tell if there was no oil
you would be sitting on the ground
so not just the plastic but i
detergents and fertilizer fabrics on
with which we dress some medicines
medicines many vitamins medicines
they come from oil and even them
candles with which we decorate the back the
our children’s birthday cake
they are all oil products
so we are happily burning
a resource is a raw material
very precious that we should instead
to keep precious jealously for the
our for us and especially for the
future generations
but we need energy
where we can get the answer is
simple and on our head
every day not at night but
on the other side but by day and on
our head even if it is not seen
because a bologna is often veiled or
cloudy and so on
the sun literally floods with energy
the earth is estimated that the amount of
energy depending on whether it arrives on earth
it is of the order of 100 thousand terawatt
we remember the 17 ter ahead before the
relationship is very unbalanced
resuming the analogy of the waterfall of the
niagara and this is an image that me
that suggested by oliver dead in his
beautiful book on the geo
engineering 100 thousand terawatt
it would correspond to a waterfall of niagara
high not 150 meters but 10 km and yes
extends all around the earth
along the horizon along the equator
so imagine this huge waterfall
10 km high that divides the hemisphere
northern from the ingbert herbert
southern through which it passes into
continuously an ocean of water
this is the and the energy that in one
according to the sun he sends to the earth
so the man on the other hand is fine
has already developed technologies that
they are already mature that exploit at least in
part of this energy we have in mind
good wind and photovoltaics
it is an example and one is a central one
solar wind that is located in texas
cerbino that from 580 megawatt that can
feed 157 thousand homes these
we all have these big ones in mind
expanses that strange even in Italy
more and more often of panels
photovoltaic
this is another example is the most
great solar farm in the world
Currently in China Longhi Anxiety and from
850 megawatts so they are powers
remarkable how much we make a factor
of scale we compare the largest
solar photovoltaic farm that
of China with the world’s needs
we see that the ratio of scales 20,000
which is a big number but all in all
not so big list considering
how many extended from the earth’s surface
so we could think of
feed our world economy
using these systems
yet for 87 percent we are still
using fossil fuels one
there must be many reasons
reasons but a region certainly
important that these systems
technological ones produce electricity
electricity is not the best
of the energy vectors we can
imagine why it is difficult to
magazine areas to be transported
clearly it would be much better to have
of energy production systems
more delocalised distributed not so
concentrated in large power plants that
they produce energy in a form
usable there where it also serves in the
remote village of central Africa
we should think of some solutions
there are other solutions
well some of us many of us around
for the world
they think there are other solutions that
these are not the only ones and certainly
not the latest solutions to the problem
renewable energy and what we must
to do we simply have to do one
step back stop a moment and
look at what nature does like
nature solved the problem of
energy conversion because it is
undoubted that nature has solved
the energy of exploitation
of solar energy because life
on earth depends 100 percent from
only then has this map solved it
with whom I have the honor of sharing the
stage is your time knows how to do this
I work very well his life depends
entirely from the sun but she from the sun
take the energy you need for yourself
grow to reproduce and prosper
as a species and the beauty that can do it
even for a long time, not her
poor thing because I will have a few months of
life
but in general its plant species
know how to take advantage of the already solar for
this purpose from 2 and a half billion
years because two and a half billion of
years ago this appeared on earth
group of chemical atoms of atoms them
they represent with colored balls
otherwise we lose and the bars
white on the bonds that bind atoms
among them in jargon this stuff
calls this class a good cluster well
do a very simple thing and you know it
doing very well knows how to capture one
water molecule this class is located
sorry inside the leaf
within proteins that
they constitute the tissue of the leaf c
There are many
this cluster knows how to capture a molecule
of water and exploiting the energy of the sun
the splits break the bonds that bind
oxygen with hydrogen and produce
hydrogen and oxygen this reaction
indicated below
in reality it is not really that way but it goes
good hydrogen is another form is not
gas in the leaf can not be methodo
an equivalent of gaseous hydrogen the
this hydrogen that is supplied
allows you to make the leaf another thing
it is also important to capture a molecule of
co2 uses the hydrogen that just produced and
convert the co2 into sugars and i
sugars we know that they are the food
of the living tissues of ourselves
also then summing up what he does
the leaf to take two molecules that
they are found all over the earth
everywhere co2 and water two molecules
stable takes them with the energy of the sun
it turns them into oxygen that releases
in the atmosphere and glucose glucose
it is the food of living tissues of the
living cells at a later time
this blue things the oxygen it has
product uses them to make them work
own internal machines then grow
reproduce prosper you see what
that makes the plant is a thing is a
beautiful virtuous circle because it uses
two molecules do this this
transformation of the already solar in
vital energy and reports reproduces the
same starting molecules so it is a
perfect example of the ray of the economy
circular of which the colleague spoke
first now we what we can do with
the artificial leaf our project
is to imitate nature take
inspiration from the intimate mechanisms
it does allow the leaf to
this this sort of miracle e
reproduce it artificially because
because in this way we can
put our ingenuity and improve
even the solutions that nature has
invented to increase its efficiency
to solve the energy problem
this we do using devices
schematically in fact so 2 the 22
blocks 2 two modules one that has the
function to absorb the energy of the sun
and to remove the electrons from the
water molecule not such as to break i
links between oxygen and hydrogen
producing oxygen that is released and i
protons h larger than indicated above
in the other module the protons and the
electrons extracted from the water come
combined to produce hydrogen
thus realizing the reaction of
water splitting and production of
hydrogen to do it we use some
carbon nanostructures like these
illustrated in this image where
these red balls are actually gods
dwarf
metal particles on which
these relationships really come
and these are nothing hi devices
tech is a device that would be there
to study and verify properties
so at the end latex this technology
would lead to the development of an economy
based on hydrogen but not hydrogen
it is the best of energy carriers
because even if it is difficult to
store and transport then the
our idea to move on
do as the leaf produces gods
fuels such as methanol
or the methane and then get to
an economy based on conversions e
solar in fuels I could now
leave them with this picture
no our artificial leaf a
day will go many artificial leaves
you can work in harmony with
synchrony to produce these
fuels but I prefer to leave you with
these pictures
actually because this is actually
the state of the art
we are still at the level of the shoot
madness the newly born leaflet is
because you arrive at the majestic tree
that you have seen in the image before
we still need a lot of work
but above all the contribution of forces e
ideas of the generation of researchers
that is now entering the world
of research
Thank you for your attention
[Applause]
”
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