[blue_dragon]

> On Perseverance we use up to 300 watts to produce about 8 grams per hour of oxygen, which represents not much more than 10 percent efficiency relative to the amount of electrochemical power it actually takes to pull apart the CO2 molecule. ... It’ll still require a reliable power source, of course. According to Dr. Hecht, a nuclear reactor capable of around 10 kilowatts (currently being developed by NASA) should do the trick.

To me, this is not "generating its own electricity". The device is still an incredible accomplishment, even more so because it's operating on Mars. But it doesn't generate its own electricity. They still need to connect it to a separate energy input to run the reaction.

I want to clarify this just in case anybody skimming the comments gets the impression that chemically splitting the CO2 into CO and oxygen gas somehow produces enough energy to sustain the reaction without external input.