文档介绍：第五篇
Putting Plants to Work
Using the power of the sun is nothing new. People have had solar-powered calculators and buildings with solar panels for decades. But plant are the real experts: They've been using sunlight as an energy source for billions of years.
Cells in the green leaves of plants work like tiny factories to convert sunlight, carbon dioxide, and water into1sugars and starches, stored energy that the plants can use. This conversion process is called photosynthesis. Unfortunately, unless you're a plant, it's difficult and expensive to convert sunlight into storable energy. That`s why scientists are taking a closer look at exactly how plants do it.
Some scientists are trying to get plants, or biological cells that act like plants, to work as miniature photosynthetic power stations. For example, Maria Ghirardi of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, , is working with green algae3. She's trying to trick them into producing hydrogen4 instead of sugars when they perform photosynthesis. Once the researchers can get the algae working efficiently, the hydrogen that they produce could be used to power fuel
cells in cars or to generate electricity.
The algae are grown in narrow-necked glass bottles to produce hydrogen in the lab. During photosynthesis, plants normally make sugars or starches. "But under certain conditions, a lot of algae are abl