Growing our own fuel

That's why Chemical Engineers are also working on ways of producing the best ways of harnessing renewable energy sources that don't harm the planet. The options include the renewable but stop-go sources such as the wind, sun and wave energy mentioned before. Using them to create hydrogen would mean we could effectively store their intermittent energy to be used whenever we need it.

More controversial is a new generation of safer, cleaner and more efficient nuclear power stations that only produce a fraction of the waste caused by current power plants.

Perhaps most promisingly Chemical Engineers are looking at what are called 'biomass' and 'geothermal' energy sources. Biomass is living material such as plants, trees and crops that can either be burnt as solid fuel or turned into a liquid or gas to be burnt. Biomass fuels obviously release a lot of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. But the biomass crops absorb an equal amount of carbon dioxide while they are growing. Thus the use of biomass is what is called 'carbon neutral'.