Space can provide the answers we seek for clean energy production in the form of nanotechnology. Just ask Justin Hall-Tipping, CEO of NanoHoldings.

“Some scientists predict doomsday,” he told delegates at the 2016 World Government Summit. “Space would stop expanding and without gravity [it] would squash us, but space is speeding up not slowing down. We need to recognise that space is here not out there… 96% of everything around us is dark energy, we cannot see it.”

The importance of understanding ‘dark energy’ is related to nanotechnology, which could solve the riddle of how to provide seven cubic miles of renewable energy.

“In 30 years time, we’ll be using 2.5 times more of our resources. We’ll be buckling under the weight of us being 10 billion people.”

The solution, he suggested, was to look at elements with fresh eyes, and ‘think nano’ instead of macro. Elements could be tweaked to produce the properties desired, such as clean hydrogen energy, or sand could transform into concrete as sea barriers.

“The essence of the building blocks of the universe dictates the smaller you go the more energetic it becomes, shrinking aluminium makes it more energetic for example,” Tipping explained.

However, a green economy involved government encouragement and funding for scientists to discover and develop the technology.

“It is not being done right now because it is more expensive, governments need to suspend their disbelief,” he said.