[KarlInOhio]

Who funded the research and if it was the American taxpayer how does he get to decide to run off to India with it? (On the flip side, if Tata does license it, then it might actually be developed and commercially sold rather than being buried under a hundred tons of new regulations)

From the article: The “artificial leaf” is a thin sheet of metal, electronics and catalysts about the size of a credit card. When placed in a gallon of water in direct sunlight Nocera said this device could create enough electricity to power a home in the developing world.

Bzzzzt! Sorry, this fails the basic physics test unless the "home in the developing world" doesn't need much electricity. Credit cards are 85.60 × 53.98 mm, which is 0.0046 square meters. Solar energy is about 1 kilowatt per square meter, so this would produce 4.6 watts at 100% efficiency. That's 1.65 kilowatt hours per month for 12 hours of sun per day. To give some comparison, my electric bill averages around 800 kWh per month. Now maybe if you had an array of them it would produce a useful amount.

[KarlInOhio]

An addendum to my previous note. If you get some larger lens and focus more light onto it you could get more power than the 0.0046 square meter area would get otherwise. This would make sense if it can handle a more power than direct sunlight gives and if a lens is cheaper than this solar cell is.

[unseen1]

the fact that US taxpayers are getting screwed on this is a problem