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The real question should be: How much improvement over time in the efficiency of this process could be expected? 1.1x? 2x? 10x? 100x?

Every new technology goes through a refinement cycle where costs & resources are reduced, and I would assume the same is possible here.

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We will likely make improvements primarily in capex, power costs, and transportation to lower our cost of producing fuel. Fundamental thermodynamics and overpotential limits will hold our efficiency to some cap, likely 75% or lower. We could try to push higher than 60%, but there will be an optimum for capex vs opex that will probably not favor the highest possible efficiencies.

Presumably they would make gains in efficiency, but only to a point - if a gallon of gasoline contains 34 kWh of energy you'll always need at least that much to create one, and at 60 kWh/gal now they aren't that far off.

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