Photosynthesis is the only natural process able to store a significant amount of solar energy as chemical energy in biomass: terrestrial plants, particularly trees, are the main repositories. However, nature has not entered photosynthesis for any energy efficiency awards-the imperative for any photosynthetic organism is replication, not the accretion of biomass. Nonetheless, if the energy-storage process were not adequately efficient. it would not serve this primary purpose.
In our context, the energy-storage efficiency of photosynthesis is of course of great interest. It determines the flux of energy into the biosphere, the land area required to produce a given number of food calories, and the biomass yield from a given area of an energy crop plantation. In this section, we first look at the structures of the carbohydrates that are the main energy-storage compounds of photosynthesis, and then the maximum gross and net efficiencies permitted by the characteristics of the photosynthesis reaction, and finally the energy-storage efficiencies actually achieved in the wild and in cultivated crops.
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