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Leaves are the ultimate solar panel. If we're going to power more of the world with the sun, we're going to need to imitate plants, one way or another. Enough solar energy strikes the earth in one hour to power our civilization for a year , and futurists like Ray Kurzweil see us moving to an all-solar civilization in the span of a single human lifetime

Mimicking the highly efficient power-generation process of photosynthesis, an artificial leaf could change how the world gets energy. And new developments at MIT mean it could happen in the next few years. Earlier this year, MIT professor Daniel Nocera made a discovery : By dipping a cobalt-and phosphate-coated artificial silicon leaf into a jar of water, he could effectively mimic photosynthesis and create power at an efficiency greater than today's solar panels

The Tata Group continues its ever-expanding quest to bring resources to low-income citizens of the world, this time with an announcement that it has joined up with MIT scientist Daniel Nocera, founder of SunCatalytix , to create power from water. Specific terms of the deal have not been disclosed.