Out On the Cutting Edge: Nanotechnology & Sustainability, How Will They Co-exist?

What is nanotechnology and why should anyone interested in sustainability be interested in it? Some answers to these questions were provided at a business breakfast in Denver recently.

Although the speakers focused on the budding nanotech businesses in Colorado, every state in the country is wanting to jump on the nanotech bandwagon.

Debbie Woodward, of the Nanotechnology Alliance, Nanotechnology in Colorado (www.coloradonanotechnology.org), defined nanotechnology as “an enabling technology.” It is the engineering of functional systems at the molecular level. So it enables us to construct items from the bottom up, which could “mean better built, longer-lasting, cleaner, safer and smarter products for the home, for communications, for medicine, for transportation, for agriculture, and for industry in general,” according to the Center for Responsible Nanotech.

All this from a technology based on something that is way too tiny to see because it’s 75,000 times smaller than a human hair.

Among the most promising possibilities for nanotech products (picked by Albuquerque Journal writer John Fleck):

-- Superstrong, lightweight materials made of carbon nanofibers for things like bicycle frames or aircraft that are far lighter than can be made today with aluminum or composite materials such as traditional carbon fibers.

-- Computer circuits based on nanotechnology, using the electrical properties of carbon nanotubes or other types of nanowires, enabling dramatically smaller and therefore more powerful microelectronic devices.

-- Drug delivery, with nanoparticles that slip drugs into living cells -- as a way, for example, to target chemotherapy drugs at tumors.

-- Filters to turn brackish water clean by running it through nanoscale channels so tiny that only water molecules can make it through.

-- Better catalysts in oil refineries and other chemical processing operations.

-- Better photoelectric panels to turn sunlight into electricity.

Currently, there are about 1,200 companies working with nanotechnology in 34 nations. In Colorado, the average size of one of these companies is 14 people, so the ability to share the prohibitively expensive research facilities, especially those funded by the federal government, is essential. New Mexico also has some first-class research facilities and is listed as one of the “Leader States” in the Colorado Nanotechnology Roadmap 2006 produced by Gary Horvath and the folks at the Leeds Business School at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Utah, Arizona, Colorado and Wyoming are listed as “Peer States” in the publication. It estimates that New Mexico will invest $14 million in nanotech economic development between 2002 and 2008. Utah’s investment for the same time period is estimated at $76.6 million; Arizona’s at $35 million; Colorado’s at $50,000.

In 2000 the U.S. government established the National Nanotechnology Initiative and is now putting about $1 billion a year into nanotech. The Initiative says the technology is in the “pre-competitive” stage, meaning it’s in the research stage of finding ways to turn scientists’ innovations and ideas into products.

Nanotech’s advocates predict that within seven years nanotech will turn into a $2.5 trillion global market. “This is a global race,” said Woodward.

A big question for those involved in nanotechnology is how the states of the Rocky Mountain West can work together to benefit all. Sharing of facilities, workforce training, and education were several areas mentioned at the Denver meeting.

And, who’s regulating this new industry? Currently there is no international regulation, no federal statutes. According to Christa Lee Rock, a law clerk with Patton Boggs, LLP, some of the existing regulations of OSHA (Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and NIOSH (National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health) are possibly applicable to nanotechnology, and the problem with creating new regulations and guidance is that “the technology to develop nanotech is evolving faster than instruments to assess exposure to air and water. In the meantime,” she said, “nanotech is booming.”

She urges nanotech companies to use safe practices, to identify and eliminate liability-creating conduct, even in the infant industry, because preemptive compliance allows companies to “participate in the shaping of regulation by demonstrating to agencies what is feasible and what is impracticable.” She says it also lowers insurance premiums and demonstrates good-faith compliance ahead of time.

Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) predicts, “My own judgment is that the nanotechnology revolution has the potential to change America on a scale equal to, if not greater than, the computer revolution.”

Will those changes affect every one of us? You bet. Will they affect sustainability issues for the world? You bet. Could we eventually rebuild the lost ozone? Maybe.