Building the bridge to a sustainable, affordable, and secure energy future.

 Richard Smalley on Energy – University Professor Lecture Series January 2003

Richard Smalley's Energy Vision was The Distributed Storage-Generation Grid as he explains in his University Professor Lecture in January 2003 and has illustrated in the image above (pdf).  He saw our energy system evolving to the point where energy is transported as electricity over wires rather than physical transportation of coal, oil, etc.  This Distributed Energy Grid allows for multiple energy inputs like massive solar or wind farms down to local energy generation through solar cells on rooftops.  In order to see this vision become reality, the current grid infrastructure must be overhauled.

Energy transportation over long distances via copper wire is not possible.  Too much energy is lost to thermal thermal expansion.  Professor Smalley's answer was to replace all the copper wiring with wires made of armchair carbon nanotubes, the Armchair Quantum Wire (AQW).