Nanotechnology to fight climate change

Most of us are somewhat-to-very concerned about climate change — how can nanotechnology help? Nanowerk brings our attention to a UK report (pdf) looking at how relatively conservative nanotech advances could make a contribution:

The study concludes that nanotechnology is likely to have a significant positive effect on the UK’s green house gas emissions: “From the areas we have studied, nanotechnology could reduce our green house gas emissions by up to 2% in the near term and up to 20% by 2050 with a similar saving being realized in air pollution. These savings are based on the wide-scale adoption of nanotechnology and the assumption that predicted breakthroughs within the field will occur when expected.”

This really sounds quite conservative to me, even without assuming highly advanced productive nanosystems. Can’t we do better within forty years? I believe we can. —Christine

Update: We are still having trouble with comment spam. Apologies to those of you whose comments have been swamped out. —CP