Gasoline has gravimetric density ~45MJ/kg and volumetric density ~35MJ/L. Costs about $3.80 / gallon avg or roughly $1/L. You can store it in a cool dry place

Gasoline has gravimetric density ~45MJ/kg and volumetric density ~35MJ/L. Costs about $3.80 / gallon avg or roughly $1/L. You can store it in a cool dry place inside a metal/plastic container for decades. Cheap, light weight, space efficient, easy to transport and convert into mechanical/electrical/heat energy. On the other hand, lithium ion battery has gravimetric density of 0.45MJ/kg - 0.7MJ/kg and volumetric density if 0.8MJ - 0.8 - 3.6 MJ/L. So gasoline and its hydrocarbon cousins (kerosene, diesel, vegetable fat) are 50-100X gravimetric dense and 10-100X volumetric dense compared to Li-ion batteries. This has huuuge implications on transport - especially air travel. Now let’s look at solar. Sun gives us about 1350 watts/m2. With clouds and conversion losses solar panels capture about 300 watts/m2. A standard US parking lot is 9ft by 18ft. That’s 15m2. At 4.5 hours of sunlight on average summer day, if the parking lot was covered with solar panel, it would generate 4.5MW of energy. Suppose hypothetically we could have an an artificial tree like technology that could convert solar to gasoline like hydrocarbon, like trees capture solar + CO2 + H20 into glucose + O2. That artificial tree solar panel would generate equivalent of 20 gallons of gasoline per month. Avg car consumes about 40 gallons a month. So 2 parking lots would generate enough energy for 1 car. An area the size of New Zealand / Italy / UK (roughly 300km2) if covered with solar can meet energy needs of the entire planet. IMO the holy grail of solar will be when we crack solar -> dense hydrocarbon store and make it cheap. It blows my mind that Trees/plants are both materials and fuel. The best form of carbon capture I know of. Wood is one of the most renewable construction materials. Trees are the ultimate natural technology that we ought to amplify. Suppose if we could make an artificial tree that captured CO2 + solar and turned it into hydrocarbon fuel + high strength/light weight carbon-fibre-like wood, that would be the epic holy grail. Abundant high density green fuels + strong light weight building materials. Fundamentally it is possible. In the universe of all possible DNA, I think there exists a configuration of DNA that will yield a high efficiency carbon capture tree. There’s also the self-assembly nature of trees. A seed grows millions of times its size into a huge tree. Then there’s the reproducing nature of trees. A tree will produce seeds that can make more trees, which will make more seeds, which makes even more trees. One seed can turn into a forest. Ofcourse we have to keep biodiversity in mind in an artificial forest. - I may get downvoted for dreaming. However from laws of physics and biochemistry artificial trees should be possible. Solar panels are non-viral non-self-assembling trees that convert to electricity.