Catalyst developers looking for promising new fields will be having a difficult time choosing projects for the future. Petroleum technology is yesterday's technology, but what will be tomorrow's? There are so many potential raw materials, intermediates, and final products (for fuel and for general chemical manufacture) and virtually all routes between them involve catalysis. This is a dynamic picture. The driving force could come from the chosen raw material (which might require a new catalyst), or it could come from a novel catalyst or catalytic process (which could dictate the raw material).
Recent developments in the extraction of natural gas from shale*, already commercialised in Texas and Pennsylvania, could change the timescale but not the ultimate need.
Raw materials now include specially grown plants, industrial wastes (eg black liquor), domestic waste, algae, and carbon dioxide. Large-scale usage of carbon dioxide would have the additional advantage of mitigating global warming.
Intermediates include chemicals that can be used either as fuels or intermediates (ethanol, butanol, dimethyl ether), and those unsuitable for use as fuels (succinic acid, glyoxal). Terpenes have been somewhat neglected, but their production in specially bred plants seems possible. They could be the basis of some speciality organics.
Recent work on the conversion of cellulose to ethanol fuel, using a zeolite catalyst, spans the old world