Plants as models for hydrogen production?

[Akhlut]

So today in my plant science course, we went over the light reactions that occur in chloroplasts. We went over how plants have embedded in their thylakoid membranes a water-splitting complex that cuts the oxygen from the hydrogens in water, resulting in 2 H+ ions, 2 e-, and an oxygen. I asked my prof about the feasibility of somehow obtaining these water-splitting complexes and using them, instead of standard electrolysis, to mass produce hydrogen. He said that while we understand the chemistry and reactions behind this, we don't have sufficient understanding of the morphology of the chloroplasts to do this.

To put it before the esteemed group of SD.net minds, do you think it will be plausible in the near future (<50 years) for humanity to somehow utilize these water-splitting complexes to obtain vast quantites of hydrogen on the cheap? My own, probably entirely too simplistic, method would be to have the complexes get their energy from sunlight (which is where they ultimately get their energy in nature) while in water to get hydrogen (as well as a large amount of oxygen that we could use for some purpose). I think this is a bit of an over-simplification, but it does have the basics down. Could this somehow be utilized more effectively for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles rather than standard electrolysis? Does this, on the whole, sound feasible at all or am I just crazy?

And if any botany specialists who know a lot more about this than me know that this crap, please alert me.

[nickolay1]

It'll only be feasible if it'll be cheap enough to allow half to be burned off to compress what remains.

[Dennis Toy]

isnt this already the process inside artifical fuel cell?