I suspect that advances in materials science will drive much of our near-future progress.

Graphane has the same honeycomb structure as graphene, except that it is "spray-painted" with hydrogen atoms that attach themselves to the carbon. The resulting bonds between the hydrogen and carbon atoms effectively tie down the electrons that make graphene so conducting. Yet graphane retains the thinness, super-strength, flexibility and density of its older chemical cousin. . .

. . . the discovery of graphane opens the flood gates to further chemical modifications of graphene. With metallic graphene at one end and insulating graphane at the other, can we fill in the divide between them with, say, graphene-based semiconductors or by, say, substituting hydrogen for fluorine?

As Professor Novoselov writes, "Being able to control the resistivity, optical transmittance and a material's work function would all be important for photonic devices like solar cells and liquid-crystal displays, for example, and altering mechanical properties and surface potential is at the heart of designing composite materials. Chemical modification of graphene – with graphane as its first example – uncovers a whole new dimension of research. The capabilities are practically endless."

Our current clunky devices based on silicon may be replaced by much more elegant carbon based devices that are smaller, faster and stronger. I've joked in the past that we'll strip the atmosphere of carbon to manufacture advanced devices and then need to mine the asteroids to avoid freezing from lack of GHGs.