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Ars Technica >> Using hydrogen to store carbon, and vice versa

“An alternative is to store hydrogen as… wait for it… hydrocarbons. Simply put, electrolysis is a pretty efficient process, and hydrocarbons have great energy density and are quite safe. The problem is not getting the hydrogen, but rather sticking it on carbon chains. Plants do this, of course, but they are very inefficient at it.

However, this doesn’t have to be so. One reason that photosynthesis is so inefficient is that supplying a hydrogen atom is a two-photon process—a process where two photons must be absorbed simultaneously by an atom or molecule to enter an excited state, which is then used to obtain the hydrogen. If we could alter photosynthesis so that the hydrogen was supplied externally, then there is a good chance that the efficiency could be improved substantially.”