Cybersam's Blog - Plants and sunlight

Saturday, February 18, 2006

Plants and sunlight

Here's an interesting question that was asked during dinner with Mike and Isa last night: Where do trees get their body mass from?

If you answered water and carbon dioxide, you are correct. From Wikipedia, here is a generalized equation representing photosynthesis (where starch is the primary product of the reaction):

6 CO₂ + 6 H₂O + light energy → C₆H₁₂O₆ + 6 O₂

Just think about it, the amount of wood that you see in a tree is the result of many years of pulling carbon dioxide from the air and water from the ground. So one way of looking at this the plant is made of air and water.

Here's another stimulating thought, fossil fuels like coal and oil come from plants that died millions of years ago. Furthermore, the energy that we humans use to do work comes from consumed food. Not surprisingly, all these energy cycles can be traced back one source: plants. Ultimately, plants harness sunlight to produce complex carbon-based products to store energy. If you really think about it, almost all energy that we know comes from sunligt.

2/18/2006 4:22:40 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00) Comments [8] Thoughts

2/19/2006 11:56:30 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Not quite. Geothermal energy comes from the core of the Earth. Moon gravitation pulls sea water and creates tides, from which we can extract some energy.

Apart from those, the long term energy solution is going to be nuclear fusion. Either the one going on in the sun or one we create here.

Matti Kinnunen |maneAT NOSPAMiki dot fi

2/19/2006 1:30:08 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

That why it was mentioned "almost all energy that we know (the form of energy that we humans use) comes from sunlight." ;-)

Cybersam

2/19/2006 4:17:56 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Right, I think I did not read carefully enough.

Matti Kinnunen |maneAT NOSPAMiki dot fi

2/20/2006 8:32:01 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Wow...good thing I didn't go. I woulda been outthunk! ;)

ilana |ilanadAT NOSPAMmit dot edu

2/21/2006 11:15:59 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

My brain hurts from reading all these smaht MIT kids ;o

Siobhan |siobhan dot oconnorAT NOSPAMireland dot com

2/27/2006 10:50:56 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

Samuel!!
Trust me to write a comment on the mind-boggling stuff!! I agree with Siobhan...my head hurts! Anyway I'm just catching up on all your blogging since I left....very interesting stuff.

Eimear

3/2/2006 5:25:46 PM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

too bad samuel is not blogging these days. Perhaps Yoko Ono stopped by for an eight day love-in, or maybe he was kidnapped by jazz lovin' aliens. Or maybe he just doesn't care anymore!!!

siobhan |siobhan dot oconnorAT NOSPAMireland dot com

4/2/2008 10:06:28 AM (Eastern Standard Time, UTC-05:00)

And that means that if humanity is smart enough, it will transfer all its energy exploitation to the sun. with enough research, we can abolish our dependency on fossile fules and rely on cheap nonpoluuting energy that comes from the sun. the biggest hurdle are the oil companies

Beijing 2008 Olympic Games