Researchers have developed a reactor that pulls carbon dioxide directly from the air and converts it into sustainable fuel, using sunlight as the power source

[u/Wagamaga]

https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/solar-powered-device-captures-carbon-dioxide-from-air-to-make-sustainable-fuel

[u/pittaxx]

There's very little "choice" in the matter. Evolution found something that works, and that's it.

Different wavelengths would mean not using chlorophyll, which would mean reinventing the entire photosynthesis, and evolution really does not like reinventing things.

Not cooking itself is a separate thing - plants radiate extra energy as heat to avoid getting burned, which is additional efficiently penalty.

[u/DerivingDelusions → u/pittaxx]

Well they could’ve used other pigments to capture light but those wavelengths are preferred to limit ROS production to a manageable level. (And some things do just look at like some algae) So you don’t really need to reinvent photosynthesis because that whole thing is kinda independent of the type of pigment used. It just matters how fast it can reasonably use energy before radicals kill it.

On a side note, another cool thing plants can do to not cook themselves is increase their stomatal conductance. But they don’t like to do that all the time because now they’re losing water (unless it’s plentiful). It’s quite literally like they’re sweating.

They can also increase intracellular proline concentrations to resist stress but it doesn’t feel as cool (unless you use ninhydrin to make it have funny red color)

[u/pittaxx → u/DerivingDelusions]

Yes, other viable pigments exist. I meant reinventing from the perspective of the organism not in general.

As in, the pigment is one of the foundational blocks that is picked before the organism goes multicellular. Given the prevalence of it, it clearly gave some big advantages in the early development stages. A billion+ years and countless development stages later, that point is rather moot, as swapping a pigment would require rebuilding most of the organism starting from the photosynthesis (hence reinventing).

And yes, you can definitely find a lot of cool things in nature.

[u/Xylenqc → u/pittaxx]

He explained the pigment is just one the building block, it can be swapped as long as a similar reaction still takes places. Another comment pointed out that scientist have produced a better pigment, if they can do it in less than a couple years, evolution would have stumbled across it a long time ago. Maybe plants just don't need that much energy, and maybe some already use different pigment. I wouldn't be surprised if some algae had a blue absorbing pigment for deeper water.

[u/Cheesemasterer → u/pittaxx]

Wrong. Evolution f-ing loves to reinvent crab

[u/pittaxx → u/Cheesemasterer]

Yes, convergent evolution is a glorious thing.

I meant more in a sense of swapping out a trait for an alternative version on an existing complex organism.

In a more general sense, multiple variants of photosynthesis evolved separately and coexist now. It's just that one of them is way more common than all the others combined.

[u/SuperGameTheory → u/pittaxx]

Evolution didn't find anything. You're anthropomorphizing it. Out of continued random variation, the photosynthesis that know is what's continued to be left over when other variations are unsustainable.