Nuclear renaissance?
Energy and climate change remain at the top of agendas around the world. The oven-like temperatures around the Mediterranean and resulting epidemic of wildfires and ruined holidays made the headlines over the summer, matched by calls to delay measures that might in some way curb the seemingly unstoppable march of climate change.
Gas revival
A decade ago, projects to gasify ‘bio’ feedstocks to fuels and chemicals were sprouting across the US and Europe. A 2017 study by the UK Department of Transport[1] projected global production of 300m L of fuels/year in 2023, and four times that by 2030. Actual output in 2023 will likely be under 100m L.
Nobel-worthy AI?
Will AI win a chemistry Nobel prize and replace us? That’s the question posed at my plenary lecture at the fall ACS meeting in San Francisco, California, in August. It may seem rather facetious, but the fact is it’s hard to tune in to the news these days without hearing something about the impacts of AI. Frequently negative, sometimes fun – and often exaggerated.
The CO2 advantage
To achieve a net zero future, we must end our reliance on fossil resources. Yet, to move away from using fossil fuels to make plastics, we need to invest in true alternatives. We need a solid and commercially competitive alternative to fossil fuels – one that can also achieve negative emissions (a net reduction of atmospheric CO2) to stabilise global warming and secure a carbon neutral future.