Читать книгу Sustainable Nanotechnology - Группа авторов - Страница 33

Water and air are essential to the survival of most living beings, but for humans, energy has become as important. As much as we promote the use of alternative sources for energy, most of it is still produced from fossil fuels. This has a huge impact on the environment and is actually a barrier to achieving sustainability. Fossil fuels may have been an excellent source for many of our needs, but it certainly has proved to not be a reliable source. First, fossil fuels are considered to be nonrenewable resources, i.e. at one point we would have to deal with their depletion and find reliable alternative resources for our needs. Additionally, this resource is not readily available to everyone because of its uneven distribution – a huge concern for those who are not able to access it [104, 105]. There are many alternative sources of energy available, most popular being solar energy, but they have not been used at a large scale due to issues with converting nonrenewable sources to renewable energy and minimizing energy loss [106]. The use of nanotechnology in the energy sector is able to provide clean energy in a cost‐effective way by developing both conventional and renewable energy sources.