Question: Hi Will, do you think that developing eco friendly fuels should be top priority of scientists today ?

William Eborall answered on 20 Jun 2011:

Hi zobell. I’m uncomfortable with the word “top” but high priority certainly. There are lots of scientists in the world with expertise that wouldn’t really be helpful to developing eco friendly fuels i.e. someone researching a cancer cure and it wouldn’t make sense to divert these people away from doing this. Also, although finding a new fuel source to power the world is important, there are other challenges facing man which are also very important and need attention. For example the world’s population is forecast to increase to between 7.5 and 9 billion people by 2050, but we’re already struggling to provide food and drinking water for the people alive today. So we need scientists to figure out a way of getting more food out of the land we already use.

Hope that answers your question.