Key questions, approaches, and challenges to energy today

•Renewables and shale gas offer both near and long term growth to meet global energy demands.•The world's energy supply picture has been dramatically impacted by shale gas recovery technology.•Shale gas offers the opportunity to broaden the NG feedstock chemicals platform.•Solar radiation offers the greatest potential, long term energy resource.

This perspectives article is intended to highlight global energy needs and solutions with a focus on catalysis. Market dynamics are discussed along with today's major energy resource options and emerging energy resources versus petroleum with a particular focus on those topics where catalysis can offer real impact: shale gas, biomass, and solar. Petroleum, NG, and coal continue to dominate the energy resources for most nations with the percentage of renewables growing but accounting, in total, for a much smaller share of the energy pie. Other natural resources, such as land, geology, and water do impact energy options. Over the last few years, shale gas has had a big impact on the available energy resources. Renewables will take increasing amounts of the energy pie, but this is going to depend on the region and in nations, such as the USA and China, which have a long term supply of any one of the big three energy resources: NG, petroleum, and/or coal. There have in the past and will continue to be roles for catalysis and new materials in the big three and in renewables with many new opportunities arising because of the recent development of vast fields of shale gas wells producing at regionally competitive prices.

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