Bubbleblower
Member
Photosynthesis actually only catches from about 0.1% to 2.0% at best. Its incredibly inefficient. If it could capture 95% of light, the plants would look very dark! Most of the sun's light either bounces back into space or becomes heat.
It doesn't absorb 95% of the light, but uses 95% of the light, may be I could have worded that better. What you mean is this:
"Photosynthesis is the most important biological process on Earth. It serves as the World's largest solar battery. The primary reactions have close to 100% quantum efficiency (i.e., one quantum of light leads toone electron transfer); and under most ideal conditions, the overall energy efficiency can reach 35%. Due to losses at all steps in biochemistry, one has been able to get only about 1 to 2% energy efficiency in most crop plants. Sugarcane is an exception as it can have almost 8% efficiency. However, many plants in Nature often have only 0.1 % energy efficiency"
You need standards to determine that, but if there are action spectra we don't know about these standards are wrong.
For example the heat you talk about is very important for flowering, it's not 100% wasted.