Page 33 - Environmental Nanotechnology Applications and Impacts of Nanomaterials

Nanotechnology and Our Energy Challenge 19

■ Improve the efficiency/storage capacity of batteries and supercapaci-
tors by ten- to a hundred-fold for automotive and distributed genera-
tion applications
■ Create new lightweight materials for hydrogen storage for pressure
tanks, LH2 vessels, and an easily reversible hydrogen chemisorption
system
■ Develop power cables, superconductors, or quantum conductors made
of new nanomaterials to rewire the electricity grid and enable long dis-
tance, continental, and even international electrical energy transport,
and reducing or eliminating thermal sag failures, eddy current losses,
and resistive losses by replacing copper and aluminum wires
■ Enable nanoelectronics to revolutionize computers, sensors, and
devices for the electricity grid and other applications
■ Develop thermochemical processes with catalysts to generate hydro-
gen from water at temperatures lower than 900 C and at commercially
viable costs
■ Create super-strong, lightweight materials that can be used to improve
efficiency in cars, planes, and space travel; the latter, if combined
with nanoelectronics-based robotics, possibly enabling solar struc-
tures on the moon or in space
■ Create efficient lighting to replace incandescent and fluorescent lights
■ Develop nanomaterials and coatings that will enable deep drilling at
lower costs to tap energy resources, including geothermal heat, in
deep strata
■ Create CO mineralization methods that can work on a vast scale
2
without waste streams (possibly basalt-based)

Nanotechnology and Renewable Energy

Use of renewable energy is an extremely promising option for both reduc-
ing greenhouse gas emissions and enhancing diversity of energy supplies.
Unlike nuclear energy or coal-derived fuel, solar-derived energy has no
massive scale waste product requiring expensive and environmentally
challenging disposal. Environmentally driven carbon taxes that favored
renewable energy might be one policy route that would propel the use of
solar technologies. But so far, many countries have favored direct sub-
sidies to investors in renewable energy and imposition of renewable
energy target standards. China, with the highest energy-use growth
rate in the world, has set a target of 10 percent renewable energy by 2010.
The European Union (EU) directive on renewable energy sources sets a