Even if it's completely inorganic, plants (or algae cultures, etc) are a necessary comparison for anything like this, but that never seems to come up. It's like announcing the invention of the motor car without comparing it to a horse.
> Even if it's completely inorganic, plants (or algae cultures, etc) are a necessary comparison for anything like this, but that never seems to come up.
Probably that's because plants are typically only 2-3% efficient when it comes to their use of sunlight, and then it's still a long way (energetically and logistically) to usable fuel or electricity. Plants are really not a good comparison benchmark here.
Given that we are currently using plants such as corn to make biofuel (at an industrial level, not just in the lab), I think it's actually a very valid comparison.
