It may seem odd to say it, but the future of resources is helpless without science and technology.

The impact these two fields have on resource stocks is huge. Without science and tech, it’s likely that there would be massive commodity supply shortages. Tech has led to new resource discoveries. And in places across the globe where you could never imagine.

In fact, I’d argue that the resource sector is the most tech advanced industry in the world. Digging for resources can be very profitable. Companies want to extract resources in the cheapest possible way. As such, they’ve gone back to the drawing board and poured trillions of dollars into science and tech.

It’s thanks to the investment in tech that the future for resource stocks looks bright.

Pioneers are building products that need more resources. One of these involves one of the greatest scientific discoveries of our lifetime —graphene.

There’s no other way to say it, this is ground breaking tech.

Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov made the discovery back in 2010. If you haven’t heard about it, keep reading. Graphene could be the most important tech of the 21st century.

So what is it?

Graphene is lighter than paper and stronger than steel. At the same time, it’s flexible and more conductive than copper. It’s possible in the future that you could be reading a newspaper made from graphene.

One day, Geim and Novoselov were playing around with graphite flakes and sticky Scotch tape. Similar to how children play with their toys. If you didn’t know, flake graphite is simply a strip of graphite.

The team were examining the electrical conduciveness of graphite.

They used the sticky tape to peel off a layer (flake) of graphite from its block. They peeled one layer at a time. Eventually they managed to shave the block down to a one atom thick flake — the thinnest of all possible layers.

A playful game ended up turning into a Nobel Prize. It turned out that this one atom flake was about 100 times stronger than steel by weight. When made into a hammock, it would be strong enough to hold a four kilogram cat but thinner than a human hair.

Graphene is only one atom thick, so it’s clear and flexible. The potential uses for graphene appear almost limitless.

But there’s one major challenge — commercialisation.

Graphene has the power to change economics. It has the power to change the world. However, it’s still in its early days. This means that there’s a lot of work to do to transform graphene into a leading product.

The aim is to manufacture graphene on a commercial scale. But there are few promising practices that exist. Experts have tried splitting graphite layers by using plasma and chemicals. However, this tends to produce lower grade graphene.

This struggle can only mean one thing…graphite will likely become a valuable product of the future. It’s also a truly scarce resource.

And don’t forget that it’s highly conductive. Some believe it could rival copper in the future. Flexible electronics, solar cells and batteries could all use graphene.

Let’s look at batteries a little closer. The world wants to reduce carbon emissions. This means that batteries will be more important to the future than ever before.

Welcome to the ‘lithium air battery’ using graphene. It has five times the storage capacity of a ‘lithium-ion battery’, which uses graphite. This is truly tech that can change the world.

Tesla Motors [NASDAQ:TSLA] may even opt for the ‘lithium-air battery’ one day. Tesla uses lithium-ion batteries to power its electric vehicles. Lithium-ion batteries are also widely used in mobile phones and laptops.

But lithium-ion batteries have a flaw. Power. Tesla lithium-ion batteries can only support 426 kilometres on one full charge. I mean, this isn’t bad, but it isn’t great. It’s likely that graphene powered batteries are the next generation. They are light in weight and high in energy. And lithium air batteries will likely be cheaper to build.

But lithium-air batteries need to become marketable. If applied to electric cars, they have the potential to go from Melbourne to Sydney on a single charge. This is a distance greater than 800 kilometres.

And there lays the issue: ‘if’ they become marketable. This will take time and patience.�