Artificial photosynthesis as a frontier technology for energy sustainability

Humanity is on the threshold of a technological revolution that will allow all human structures across the earth to undertake photosynthesis more efficiently than plants; making zero carbon fuels by using solar energy to split water (as a cheap and abundant source of hydrogen) or other products from reduced atmospheric carbon dioxide. The development and global deployment of such articial photosynthesis (AP) technology addresses three of humanity’s most urgent public policy challenges: to reduce anthropogenic carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, to increase fuel security and to provide a sustainable global economy and ecosystem. Yet, despite the considerable research being undertaken in this eld and the incipient thrust to commercialisation, AP remains largely unknown in energy and climate change public policy debates. Here we explore mechanisms for enhancing the policy and governance prole of this frontier technology for energy sustainability, even in the absence of a global project on articial photosynthesis. Globalizing AP – a first principles argument The argument for globalising articial photosynthesis (AP) appears simple from rst principles. Most of the our energy (particularly for transport) at present comes from burning ‘archived photosynthesis’ fuels (i.e., carbon-intensive oil, coal and natural gas) in a centralised and protable distribution network with decades long turnaround on high levels of private corporate investment and a well-honed capacity to prolong its existence through innovations such as coal-seam gas ‘fracking’ and shale oil extraction, despite its signicant contribution to critical problems such as atmospheric greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, ocean acidication and geopolitical instability. 1,2 Molecular hydrogen (H2) is an obvious alternative, its conversion into electricity or heat yielding only H2O, with no CO2 being produced. Currently 500 � 109 standard cubic