Artificial 'Leaves' : Pros and Cons

The University of Cambridge is developing automated floating 'factories' that can produce 'green' versions of petrol and diesel. These leaf-like entities, use sunlight combining carbon dioxide and water to produce hydrocarbons. It's basically, photosynthesis but without plants. The idea is to produce 'net zero' fuels for cars, jets and ships (https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/nov/12/floating-factories-artificial-leaves-green-fuel-jets-ships-carbon-dioxide). Sounds too good to be true? There are, of course, a number of pros and cons for such a development. An obvious pro is that the process could make it less economic, to extract oil and gas from finite geological deposits. Extracting oil and gas also liberates methane, a particularly powerful 'greenhouse gas'. It's claimed that the fuels will be 'net zero', because the carbon dioxide used in manufacture is released when it's burned. This may not, however, be entirely true. The artificial 'leaves' have to be manfactured. There are also energy losses in this kind of process. Are they greater or lesser than using solar generated electricity? Cons include having to find space for these automated floating 'factories'. Their location could have a severe impact on both appearance and the viability of other organisms inhabiting the waters. Perhaps the technology's biggest disadvantage is its encouraging the retention of the current engines in cars, jet planes and shipping. This could, not only result in folk continuing to use some fossil fuels, it also reduces the need to develop new 'green' technologies. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out!