Powering the Planet [2007 MRS Spring Meeting Plenary Address]

I am humbled and honored to be here to tell you about a topic that is dear to everyone’s heart — and vital to the future of our planet. My colleague, Richard Smalley, gave a presentation1 on this topic several years ago, at a similar MRS plenary session. Over the last few years of Dr. Smalley’s life, he and I worked together, traveling across our country to deliver a message about a subject that we — like many others, both scientists and lay people — have come to believe is unequivocally the most important technological problem in the world: our global energy future. That is an incredibly powerful statement, one that during the next hour I hope to ably defend