In a food chain, the solar energy utilized by plants is only 0.1 percent. This means that out of all the solar energy that reaches the plants, only 0.1 percent is converted into chemical energy through the process of photosynthesis. This low percentage is due to the fact that plants can only capture and convert a small fraction of the sunlight that falls on their leaves. The majority of the solar energy is either reflected or scattered by the atmosphere, and some of it is absorbed by non-photosynthetic parts of the plant. It is important to note that the remaining percentage (99.9 percent) of the solar energy is either lost as heat or used for other metabolic processes within the plant. Therefore, despite the abundance of solar energy, only a small fraction is harnessed by plants as a source of energy for the food chain.