Dr Richard Smalley, Nobel prize-winner and a top US nanotechnologist, made an impassioned call on Tuesday to a gathering of more than 2,000 of the world's top chip experts to join in a mission to eradicate the world's ten largest problems.

Mr Smalley was the honored speaker at a lunchtime gathering of the International Electron Devices Meeting in San Francisco. The four-day conference attracts the world's leading technologists.

The Nobel Prize winner lost no time in slamming President Bush's poor support for scientific research and education. He said that the situation would likely not improve over the next four years. However, he said that President Bush had an opportunity to turn things around and help solve critical global problems.

"The president has four more years to accomplish a mission and set a grand challenge, a problem difficult enough and challenging enough to inspire new generations of scientists and engineers," said Mr Smalley.

He said that the most critical problem facing the world today is energy and finding new sources to support a population of 10 billion by 2050. He calculates that our present population of 6.5bn consumes about 14.5 Terawatts of energy, which is equivalent to 220m barrels of oil per day. By 2050 this could rise to as much as 50 Terawatts yet "the world is likely to pass through its maximum point of oil production in a matter of weeks," he said.

New fossil fuel sources and current energy technologies are inadequate to meet the looming global challenge. But this can become the challenge for the world's top scientists. "If you solve the energy question you solve the other nine top global problems such as war, water, food, and environmental change."

A vast array of technologies would need to be invented to provide future populations with sufficient energy to support a "reasonable lifestyle." However, this cannot be accomplished unless the energy is affordable to all and doesn't damage the environment.

Mr Smalley won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1996 for his work on buckyballs and carbon nanotubes. These are exotic nanotechnology materials that could lead to advanced types of chips and a multitude of other breakthroughs. He is currently working on ways to mass-produce carbon nanotubes, which could also play a part in the development of future energy related technologies.

In a press conference after the speech, Mr Smalley called upon veteran business leaders such as Intel's chairman Andy Grove and CEO Craig Barrett to take up the cause and meet with President Bush. "Politicians like to talk with business leaders; I'm sure the president would listen to them."

However, Mr Grove and Mr Barrett might find it wise not to mention Intel's latest PC microprocessor, which consumes an energy hogging 140-watts.