Nanotechnology can help achieve climate, sustainability goals: Expert

Nanotechnology can help the world meet sustainability goals and climate targets while delivering solutions to geopolitical, energy and economic challenges for the US, says a report by Rachel Meidl, a fellow in energy and environment at the Center for Energy Studies of Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

Meidl says in her report that creating a domestic source for materials production through methane pyrolysis can achieve three things: 1. lesser impact on communities where these minerals are found and processed, 2. substitution of hard-to-decarbonize energy-intensive materials like aluminum, steel and cement and 3. reduction of critical-material dependencies on foreign markets thanks to carbon nanotubes (CNTs) and other nanomaterials.

The expert writes that achieving energy independence for the US is dependent on CNTs. She notes that the most significant headway in nanoscience and the societal advantages secured by them are taking place somewhere else, placing the national security and economic prosperity of the US at risk by detracting from America’s competitiveness.

The report titled “Recommendations for Realizing the Full Potential of Nanotechnology and Carbon Nanotubes in the Energy Transition” can be read here.

“As an example, the manufacturing of solar nanomaterials has almost entirely shifted abroad,” writes Meidl, according to a press release by Rice University. “Additionally, China dominates 80% of the refining and processing of the world’s battery materials, 77% of the world’s cell capacity and 60% of the world’s component manufacturing, competencies that are critical to renewable and low-carbon technologies that will purportedly bring us closer to sustainability and climate stability.”

The energy and environment fellow maintains that the US federal investments can facilitate later findings that broaden the present knowledge and ensure America continues to lead nanotechnology.

She writes, “Unleashing these abundant domestic energy resources will require investment in next-generation, nano-enabled energy technologies that will improve the resiliency and sustainability of the nation and fashion a future in which responsible development and deployment of nanotechnology provides maximum benefit to the environment and to human social and economic well-being.”