Andrei Fedorov from the Georgia Institute of Technology (US) and Mildred Dresselhaus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US) and their colleagues explain how nanotechnology might solve our energy crisis.rnThe global demand for energy is set to double, if not triple, by the end of the 21st century - harnessing that energy is one of the most pressing global challenges we face. More than 80 per cent of our energy comes from the carbon dioxide-emitting fossil fuel trio of coal, oil and natural gas. Only a small fraction is provided by renewable sources, such as geothermal, wind and solar power, and biofuels. But with the current explosion in economic development and population growth, particularly in China and India, to meet the rising energy demand we would need to increase fossil fuel use to levels that would pose a grave environmental threat. We acknowledge now that a major scientific and societal change is upon us, to convert from a fossil fuel-based energy economy to a sustainable one.
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