OK oil is dead, solar panels can do it...

[Simpo Two]

What does the panel (no pun intended) think?

http://themindunleashed.org/2014/09/is-this-the-br...

[CzechItOut]

Impressive stuff. This technology is moving on incredibly fast.

[Jonny_]

It's a useful advance in terms of manufacturing and ease of application, certainly.

Unfortunately it still has the limitation of all photovoltaics, which is extremely low efficiency.

[anonymous-user]

Well, maybe, but we will also need to launch a huge mirror into space, so we can have sunlight 24 hours a day. Sounds easy enough to me.......

[pherlopolus]

or we could invent something to store electricity, we could perhaps call it a battery....?

[marshalla]

"organic inks" - where do they get the organic compounds from ?

[thatdude]

marshalla said:

"organic inks" - where do they get the organic compounds from ?

In the most part...oil!

However

Inks, usually being coloured, rely on a chromophore which is usually some sort of highly unsaturated / electron-rich carbon chain (think alternating alkane / alkene bonds). Nature is very VERY good at doing this, since they are created through various biosynthetic pathways (malevonate, isoprene, that sort of thing). So we could turn to plants / fruits / vegetables for a chemical feedstock from which to further synthesise required compounds from.

An example compound is lycopene (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lycopene) from tomatoes.

The thing with these sorts of compounds though is their stability. Electron-rich, to me, indicates a high predisposiation to oxidation and therefore degredation. Might not be as toxic though (take a pinch of salt with that statement) and are potentially more environmentally friendly compared to metal-based, inorganic / organometallic pigments (no metals being put into the waste streams...)