Dr. Mershin says that by using agricultural waste and inexpensive materials, like grass clippings, to create solar panels, electricity could become affordable and more available to rural places and developing countries.

FORBES: Grass Clippings Turned Into Solar Cells by MIT Scientist

Fossil fuels, similarly -- we are trying to target fossil fuels and design so that you get fossil -- biomass to replace fossil fuel, but biomass based on, for example, woody materials, based on agricultural waste like wheat straw, corn cobs -- agricultural waste, lumber waste residues -- that's very inexpensive feedstock.

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Here is the recipe he and his team discovered: organic material, like grass clippings or agricultural waste, is mixed with a stabilizing peptide powder and from that protein is extracted from the materials, stabilized.

FORBES: Grass Clippings Turned Into Solar Cells by MIT Scientist