It's extremely, extremely unlikely that we're going to beat plants on efficiency of biomass production, on either a per unit solar energy or per unit resources basis (there are two general photosynthesis pathways that optimize for each of these two endpoints). That doesn't mean we can't beat them at other things, of course (as solar panels demonstrate) but this is what they are optimized for, and the competitive advantage of finding a better way to synthesize biomass is huge to the point that it only needs to evolve once to take over a large fraction of the Earth.
> It's extremely, extremely unlikely that we're going to beat plants on efficiency of biomass production
I'm not so sure this is true. If it turned out that a more efficient pathway is possible with solar energy collection via sheets of extremely pure crystalline silicon (i.e. solar panels), then I would not think that it's strange that evolution didn't come up with it first. Some solutions simply aren't accessible to evolution.
> "According to the current technical parameters, the annual production of starch in a one-cubic-meter bioreactor theoretically equates with the starch annual yield from growing 1/3 hectare of maize without considering the energy input," said Cai Tao, lead author of the study.
It sounds like they're trying to save on land and freshwater, not energy or raw materials.
