Chemist Andrea Sella explores the current race to do photosynthesis better than nature ever achieved. In just a few hundred years mankind has burnt fossil fuels which had taken natural photosynthesis billions of years to create.

Now, around the world hundreds of millions of pounds are being spent on the race to develop a robust, cheap and efficient way to turn water and the light from the sun into new fuels we can use. At a time when politicians everywhere debate the economics and climatic burdens of future energy needs, such a "Solar Fuel" would be a genuinely novel alternative energy.