To meet the ambitious goal of net-zero emissions by 2050, the U.S. is going to have to get creative with renewable energy. We can double down on long-established technologies like wind, geothermal, and solar energy, but they aren’t perfect.For example, solar panel manufacturing comes with a hefty carbon footprint and requires dangerous chemicals. To seek out a more sustainable source of solar energy, scientists from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) are starting small.Well, more like microscopic: The researchers tricked out bacteria to produce solar electricity, which they hope to scale up for widespread production.What’s new — The team inserted tiny fluorescent tubes made of carbon atoms into bacteria and observed how the tubes were distributed as the bacteria divided. The two types of cyanobacteria they studied, Synechocystis and Nostoc, get their…
These lab-engineered bacteria can take in solar energy and spit out clean electricity
