You are certainly right for noticing. Along with computing, materials technology will be key to the next generation.
If you look at the pace of change due to technology, it's accelerating and the rate of acceleration is itself accelerating.
Ray Kurzweil has applied the term "singularity" to what lies ahead. The notion is that one cannot predict what is on the other side of a singularity - a mathematical term - and roughly at the time that robots are smart enough to design robots, the world will snap into a new phase.
As for energy? It won't be solar - too diffuse. But tritium fusion is just around the corner and it will be a big, big deal. BIG. Unbounded low-cost energy means all other problems get easier. Need water? Boil the sea. Travel to Tokyo in an hour? Maglev in evacuated tunnels. Outer space? Take the space elevator. Need materials? Make them synthetically. Live forever? Man-machine integration. It can all be done when energy is free.
One difficult question is how will society absorb so much change and so much productivity that most of us will not labor in the traditional sense. Our kids are in for quite a new epoch.
