The Washington herald., 1921-10-14


Crew. DR.. L. T. Troland. and Prof
II. ]. Pupin.
USING Sun ENERGY DIRECT
GREATEST CHEMICAL TASK.
The question Of the highest prac-
teal Importance. as well as Of the
greatest theoretical interest. is tho
possibility of direct utilization
of solar energy" DR. Edward l.
: Slosson. editor of Science Service.
told the Chemical Society Of Wash
ington at its meeting at the Cosmos
Club last night, when he spoke %,
The Constructive Chemist.
"All our food and all our fuel. all
our muscular and machine power.
depend upon the peculiar ability 81
. the little green granules Of veEeta-
tion to build up carbohydrates Oh;
of air and water. The greatest I.-
action-or il you insist on having
IL in Greek, the chlorOphyl reac-
tion-is the sole support Of all plant
and vegetable life and withoui IL the
earth would be a desert planet like
the moon.
IF the work Of the world were
really done by ''horse-poW.r." as
we still call IL. man would have
reached the limits Of civilization
a hundred years ago for a hvrsc
requires hay and hay requires hand
and there would not be enough land
in the world to provide for the
horsepower we are now using Sup
plemening the green fields with the
coal fields. man has not only pre-
vented civilization from coming 10
stop. but has given IL an unpre-
cedented forward impetus. The iron
horse feeds on subterranean pas
lures. He is living on crops OF the
Carboniferous Era. Modern civilI-
zation basks in the sunshine that
fell upon the earth unmeasurcd
millenia ago. We are living on our
capital. drawing on the coal banks
Sometime we must begin TO earn
our own living. to grow our fuel
as we go.
Meanwhile. the amount Of solar
energy that is being stored up in
the plants every summer is ten
times as great as that released lr
the combustion OF coal But coal is
! more condensed and convenient than
wood. Oil and gas are still better
fuels. II would seriously check the
progress of civilization IL the world
had to return TO the wood basis as
IL was a hundred and fifty years
ago.
still the trees and tiny plants
fiaunt their foliage provocatiVeiy IN
the face Of the scientist who must
confess that he can not yet accom-
plish what they do so easily. For
ha q !.
, and water and no power but thi
sunshine. build up by the ton N
most complicated carbohydrate,
! out Of the simplest compounds
the commonest elements-car
hydrogen and oxygen. The che
with command Of pressures va
} from a vacuum to the point "
steel flows like tar and with
| msnd Of temperatures ranging Z
the boiling point Of carbon aim
to absolute zero. is still obliged
: confess that he cannot accompi
, the simple reaction of the polymS
izins Of aldehyde. Even il he knc
, how he could not hope to conpcy
with plants on their own gruun,' '
because they have at their commaug
free raw materials and the oh,
labor Of protoplasm. Even = pr.
fessor Of chemistry can not live as
cheaply as a cornstalk.
. But there are as many celiu-
loses as there are sugars and IL
is not probable that those that the
plants have prepared for their own
purposes would be the best for an
human purposes. Just as we have
found that better dyes and drugs
can be made In the factory than
can be found IN nature. so we may
surmise that some of the funda-
mental foodstuffs. starches. sugars.
fats and even proteins. may nos
sibly be improved upon.
"But much more important and
promising than the possibility Of
synthetic food is the possibility thst
We may devise some better method
of capturing solar energy than the
plants have hit upon. The chloro-
phyl process is shockingly waste
full. Less than one per cent of the
solar energy that falls upon a leaf
is filed in the form of CARBOHYDRATE
from which IL may be later released
by oxidation. The crude steam en-
gines. set up in Egypt. catching
throwing the heat upon blackened
water pipes. have an efficiency Of
some four per cent much higher
than the green plant
But a steam engine at best IL
an inefficient machine and now that
we are able TO guide streams OF
electrons where we win and sort
them out. according to speeds. by
means OF grids acting like Maxwell's
demon. we may reasonably hope 20
utilize the radiant energy OF the
sun directly for power purposes. Cd
lperhaps draw upon the exhaustlea
forces inside the atom. II sunshIr
can excite a selenium cell and d
compose silver bromide on a phd
tographic plate. IL may be made 4
do work Of another sort and on \
larger scale. Here at any rate the
greatest problem that the world
presents and the highest prizes are
offered Nfor its successful soiu-
? ton" - W. n