Revolutionary Times

This perspective article presents the author's views on the current revolutionary time in society and science, driven by the actions to mitigate climate change and the targets in the decrease of CO₂ emissions. Due to the short time scale needed to implement large-scale renewable electricity schemes, new technologies on how to store huge amounts of electric energy have to be implemented. One possibility is the production of hydrogen from water using renewable electricity, which also open up new avenues to perform ammonia and methanol syntheses. The future application of photocatalysis using direct sunlight for the production of solar fuels is also discussed, commenting on which are the most promising photocatalytic reactions that are close to become tested on pilot scales.