The British Government’s net zero policy will affect all our daily lives. From how we power our homes to how we fuel our economy, the plan to phase out fossil fuels and replace them with zero carbon energy is an unprecedented challenge. But there is a solution – nuclear. Nuclear power is the only form of mass energy generation that can replace fossil fuels, and, unlike other renewable sources, it works day or night, rain or shine.

Nuclear energy is bound inside the heart of atoms. It has the potential to power our civilisation while avoiding climate change, but nuclear waste — hazardous for hundreds of millennia — is often touted as a reason not to pursue a nuclear-powered future. Emerging technologies, however, cast nuclear waste in a new light, transforming it from our deadliest foe to one of our greatest assets, with the ability to power new reactors, cure cancers, and take us into deep space.

So-called ‘blue sky science’ — that is, science that is curiosity-driven with no explicit or immediate real world application — is part of the lifeblood of the scientific enterprise and technological innovation. Unconstrained by specificity, it often takes us to uncharted territories, and from it come many unexpected and miraculous discoveries. Indeed, many of the things we take for granted in our everyday lives saw their inception in esoteric and abstract questions of academic research – and there are many lessons here for innovation in business too.

The charred remains of stones that fall from the sky have captured the human imagination for millennia, and using the tools of modern science we have read from them the most ancient tales in the Solar System: the coming together of our planetary system, the formation of worlds, and clues to our own origins. Meteorites are custodians of deep time and interstellar chemistry. These rocks from outer space can offer lessons about ourselves and our organisation by taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture.