A Proposal for the Reevaluation of Developmental Research of Photobiological Hydrogen Production -Toward Development of Renewable Energy Source-

Abstract

The amount of solar energy received by the earth’s surface exceeds that of the world social energy consumption by 6000 times, and its exploitation as a source of renewable energy source is keenly desired. The process consisting of photobiological production of hydrogen utilizing cyanobacteria has distinct advantages over the most of the conventional energy producing systems in that it consumes less material and less energy, and produces less waste materials than the latter during any stages of production, operation and disposal of the process. This paper describes a proposal for the reevaluation and the promotion of developmental research on hydrogen production utilizing oxygen-evolving photosynthesis.