Nanoscientists and biologists copying, co-opting nature for solar fuels

Inside Bay Area - San Mateo County Times - Local News:
by Ian Hoffman -- 11/27/2005
"Plant photosynthesis works one molecule at a time, and generally 4 percent or less of incoming solar energy ends up as plant fuel. Sunlight is plentiful enough that plants haven't been under evolutionary pressure to convert more, but what they do already may be enough.
Midwest farmers now produce enough corn for digestion and fermentation into 4 billion gallons of ethanol. But a recent study by the Energy Department and the U.S. Department of Agriculture, titled the 'Billion Ton Vision,' found enough available farmland and forestland to produce tens of billions of gallons of biofuels, supplying a third or more of U.S. transportation fuel needs, without sacrificing food production.
'We're at the stage with this biomass technology that we have something that works. Can we make it work twice as efficiently? I think we could,' said Chris Somerville, a Stanford biochemist who leads the Carnegie Institution Department of Plant Biology. "