In order to make sea water more useful, large desalination plants around the world use tons of power to force salt water through a reverse-osmosis process. An amazing new filter material recently developed by engineers at Lockheed Martin could make this process 100x more efficient. Known as Perforene, this new material uses a graphene nanotechnology.

John Stetson, who has been working on the idea since 2007, said in an interview with Reuters, "It's 500 times thinner than the best filter on the market today and a thousand times stronger. The energy that's required and the pressure that's required to filter salt is approximately 100 times less."

This breakthrough is yet another example of how technology can be a resource-liberating mechanism (to borrow a phrase from Dr. Diamandis).

Imagine greening the Sahara desert and creating a global abundance of sustainable food production.