[demallien]

Oh, and whilst we are on the subject, Does anyone here have their favourite theory for where the next big advance in energy tech is going to come from? Personally I'm surprised by the lack of government investing in nano-tech. Battery tech, fuel cells and solar panels all seem like prime candidates to benefit from a better understanding of how to construct materials at the molecular scale.

[gaius]

What can you do with "nanotech" that you can't do already? Bear in mind the scale that CPUs are manufactured to now.

[demallien]

Well, I've noticed that solar panel design is starting to head that way - most of the latest and greatest stuff coming out of that corner of research is about using exotic nanotech to produce better panels.

Battery technology can also stand to benefit, allowing for higher energy density batteries, and potentially reducing our dependence on lithium.

Or how about a space elevator, that makes space-base solar cells a viable solution for base energy generation?

These are just a few guesses about how nanotech is likely to help, based on current research results, but there are no doubt other avenues of use of nanotech that I haven't thought of / aren't aware of that are relevant in this context.

What we really need is a better capacity to model the properties of materials designed at nano-scale. Sadly it's the sort of research that has trouble attracting investment because it's too far away from an actual product. But if we ever get to the point where we can use genetic algorithms to search for materials having specific properties, that would turn the world on it's head.

[saulrh]

A lot of our nanotech is still in the micro domain or dealing purely with chemicals. A CPU's fundamental organization is too small to be seen without a really, really good microscope, nanomedicines currently only deal with germs and minor changes to their environment, and so on. We have yet to touch the macro domain. For example, nobody has built a car body out of carbon nanotubes so far, and just imagine what would happen if someone found a way to make photovoltaic cells self-assemble on boards dipped in a vat.