Responsible Nanotechnology

Drexler to Speak

We received an interesting press release [PDF] today, that says:

World-famous futurist and the man who first coined the word, nanotechnology, will be a leading attraction among other top minds in science during International Nanotechnology Week. 

Organizers of the international nanotechnology event held each year in Dallas, Texas, announced that K. Eric Drexler will present his latest insights the second day of the event, Friday, October 3, when he speaks to a crowd of nanotech business interests at nanoTX USA’08, held this year at the Hyatt Regency Dallas convention hotel. 

As a researcher and author, Drexler’s work focuses on advanced nanotechnologies and directions for current research. His 1981 paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences established fundamental principles of molecular design, protein engineering, and productive nanosystems.

And, if that's not impressive enough, the announcement goes on to say:

Much of what Drexler saw coming is being realized today, indeed he worked to create it.  This field has been his basis for numerous journal articles and books, including Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology (written for a general audience) and Nanosystems: Molecular Machinery, Manufacturing, and Computation (a quantitative, physics-based analysis).  And Drexler helped lead development of the 2007 Technology Roadmap for Productive Nanosystems, a project managed by Battelle and hosted by several of the U.S. National Laboratories.

Drexler was awarded a PhD from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Molecular Nanotechnology (the first degree of its kind). Dr. Drexler serves as Chief Technical Advisor to Nanorex, a company developing open-source design software for structural DNA nanotechnologies. He consults and speaks on how current research can be directed more effectively toward high-payoff objectives, and addresses the implications of emerging technologies for our future, including their use to solve, rather than delay, large-scale problems such as global warming.

Put that together with the complimentary language used in Monday's press release from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), and it looks like Drexler's ideas for molecular manufacturing are being rehabilitated/resurrected by the U.S. science community.

This all goes back, it seems, to the landmark report in December 2006 from the U.S. National Materials Advisory Board that called for increased research funding of such concepts, and then the remarkable work achieved by the UK's "Ideas Factory" in the following month.

Since then, we have seen denials of molecular manufacturing's feasibility drop off to almost zero, while more and more scientists now appear willing to credit Drexler for their inspiration. It's a remarkable change.

Mike Treder

Nano Machinery Motors

Products put together by a nanofactory (see here for some fun examples) can be expected to be far more powerful and sophisticated than today's best-built products.

One reason is that these products will be atomically-precise and effectively without flaws, meaning they will be far more durable and long-lasting. Another reason is that they will be constructed largely of diamondoid, giving them incredible strength and hardness, as well as flexibility. A third reason is that they can incorporate nano-built supercomputers, sensors, actuators, cameras, and other high-tech machinery.

But what will drive that machinery? What sort of tiny motors could be contained within these products?

Previously, we (and others) have written about using modular 'nanoblocks' as the basic building materials for nanofactory products:

There will be dozens or hundreds of nanoblock types, with each type parameterized to some extent. In a way, they might be very roughly analogous to the assembly language of a computer.

Some blocks might change dimension (actuators). Some could be sensors or display elements. Some might be analogous to utility tunnels with valves and conduits, programmable to distribute information, materials, and power. Some could contain computer CPU's or other logic circuitry. Some would be nearly-solid structural components. Some might have wheels sticking out one side to contact a large shaft, with a cylindrical array of such blocks acting as a bearing or motor.

So, some of these dozens of basic nanoblock designs will contain motors. What kind of motors? Here are some options...

1. Light-driven Motors: Rice University, for example, has demonstrated that molecular machines are possible with its "nanocar." Last year, researchers at the school revealed that they had attached a motor to the molecule-size vehicle. The motor is powered by a beam of light, making it the first nanovehicle with its own engine. Roughly 20,000 of the cars could be parked side-by-side across the diameter of a human hair, the scientists said.
2. Electrostatic Motors: Electrostatic forces—static cling—can make a motor turn. As the motor shrinks, the power density increases; calculations show that a nanoscale electrostatic motor may have a power density as high as a million watts per cubic millimeter. And at such small scales, it would not need high voltage to create a useful force.
3. Temperature-change Motors: Researchers from the Spanish National Research Council, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, and the Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology claim to have created the first nanomotor that is moved by changes in temperature. This is believed to be the first time a nanometre-sized motor has been created that can use changes in temperature to generate and control movements.

The third one there is brand new:

The 'nanotransporter' consists of a carbon nanotube—a cylindrical molecule formed by carbon atoms—covered with a shorter concentric nanotube that can move back and forth or act as a rotor.

A metal cargo can be added to the shorter mobile tube, which could then transport this cargo from one end to the other of the longer tube or rotate it around its axis.

Researchers are able to control these movements by applying different temperatures at the two ends of the long nanotube. The shorter mobile tube thus moves from the warmer to the colder area in a similar manner to the way in which air moves around a heater. . .

The movements along the longer tube can be controlled with a precision of less than the diameter of an atom. This ability to control the objects at the nanometre scale can be extremely useful for future nanoelectromechanical applications.

Note that this new motor can control movement "with a precision of less than the diameter of an atom" -- in other words, with atomic precision.

Again, this is not all the way to molecular manufacturing, as we said yesterday about the "prototype nano assembler." But it's impressive work, and adds yet another item to the nanoscale toolbox.

Mike Treder

Prototype Nano Assembler

This is not what you'd normally expect to see in a press release from a U.S. government scientist:

The first real steps towards building a microscopic device that can construct nano machines have been taken by US researchers. Writing in [a] peer-reviewed publication, researchers describe an early prototype for a nanoassembler.

In his 1986 book, The Engines of Creation, K. Eric Drexler set down the long-term aim of nanotechnology -- to create an assembler, a microscopic device, a robot, that could construct yet smaller devices from individual atoms and molecules.

For the last two decades, those researchers who recognized the potential have taken diminutive steps towards such a nanoassembler. Those taking the top-down approach have seen the manipulative power of the atomic force microscope (AFM), a machine that can observe and handle single atoms, as one solution. Those taking the bottom-up approach are using chemistry to build molecular machinery.

However, neither the top-down nor the bottom-up approach is yet to fulfill Drexler's prophecy of functional nanobots that can construct other machines on a scale of just a few billionths of a meter. . .

Yet the rewards could be enormous with the ultimate potential of creating a technology that can construct almost any material from atoms and molecules from super-strong but incredibly lightweight construction materials to a molecular computer or even nanobots that can make other nanobots to solve global problems, such as food, water, and energy shortages.

Jason Gorman, contact person on the announcement, is with the Intelligent Systems Division of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Here's more from the release:

Gorman and his colleagues at NIST have taken a novel approach to building a nanoassembler and reveal details in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Nanomanufacturing. "Our demonstration is still a work in progress," says Gorman, "you might describe it as a 'proto-prototype' for a nanoassembler."

The NIST system consists of four Microelectromechanical Systems (MEMS) devices positioned around a centrally located port on a chip into which the starting materials can be placed Each nanomanipulator is composed of positioning mechanism with an attached nanoprobe. By simultaneously controlling the position of each of these nanoprobes, the team can use them to cooperatively assemble a complex structure on a very small scale. "If successful, this project will result in an on-chip nanomanufacturing system that would be the first of its kind," says Gorman. . .

Importantly, once the team has optimized their design they anticipate that nanoassembly systems could be made for around $400 per chip at present costs. This is thousands of times cheaper than macro-scale systems such as the AFM.

Gorman points out that it should be possible to have multiple nanoassemblers working simultaneously to manufacture next generation nanoelectronics. At the moment, his team is interested in developing the platform for scientists and engineers to make cutting edge discoveries in nanotechnology. "Very few effective tools exist for manipulation and assembly at the nano-scale, thereby limiting the growth of this critical field," he says.

Assuming this concept can be put into practice, as Gorman and his team expect, it will represent a significant step forward in enabling technologies for molecular manufacturing. It's not all the way there, of course. In fact, several more steps will be required, which may take at least another five to ten years.

But this is an important advance, especially since it comes from within the U.S. scientific community, which up until now has been largely dismissive of molecular manufacturing theory.

Horizon Scanning

Lloyd's is the world's largest insurance marketer, providing specialist insurance services to businesses in over 200 countries and territories. A few weeks ago, Lloyd's News Centre reported on a new list of "25 alarming threats to the ecosystem identified by UK environmental scientists and policymakers." (Hat tip to Nanotechnology Now.)

The list, which is the result of an exercise called horizon scanning, also points to hazards associated with climate change such as coastal flooding, increased fire risk, and the growing demand for biofuels and biomass.

Published online in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology, the list came out of a two-day meeting held in Cambridge involving 35 representatives from government, environmental NGOs and academia.

And what do you suppose was the #1 Risk identified by this horizon scanning exercise?

The 25 Threats Identified by Horizon Scanning

1. Nanotechnologies
2. Invasive potential and possible ecosystem impacts of artificial life and biomimetic robots
3. Unintended consequences of pathogens developed by modern biotechnology methods
4. Direct impact of novel pathogens
5. Impacts of control efforts for novel pathogens
6. Facilitation of non-native invasive species through climate change
7. Large-scale restoration for iconic wildlife and habitats
8. Action to facilitate species range change in the face of climate change
9. Frequency of extreme weather events
10. Geo-engineering the planet to mitigate the effects of climate change
11. Implications for biodiversity of the adoption of an ecosystem approach
12. Increased fire risk
13. Increasing demand for biofuel and biomass
14. Step change in demand for food and hence pressure on land for agriculture
15. Ocean acidification
16. Reduction of coldwater continental shelf marine habitats
17. Significant increase in coastal and offshore power generation
18. Extreme high-water coastal events
19. Sea level rise resulting in loss of coastal and intertidal habitats
20. Dramatic changes in freshwater flows
21. Nature conservation policy and practice may not keep pace with environmental change
22. Internet and new e-technologies connect people with information on the environment
23. Decline in engagement with nature
24. Adoption of monetary value as the key criterion in conservation decision-making
25. Public antagonism towards wildlife due to perceived human health threat

Of course, 'nanotechnologies' is a big category, which can include both current threats such as environmental and health risks from nanoparticle exposure, in addition to longer-term risks associated with advanced nanotechnology.

Trevor Maynard, Manager of Emerging Risks at Lloyd’s, says:

“The list produced by the horizon scanning exercise was interesting because it contained threats with obvious implications for insurers – such as an increase in extreme weather events. But it also produced other threats with less obvious implications. For example, the introduction by companies of invasive plant species to meet demands for biofuels and whether any liability issues might arise as a consequence.”

Maynard thinks that the list also poses important questions related to liability and insurability. “The risks attached to geo-engineering – fertilising the oceans to encourage plankton growth and increase the size of the carbon sink, for example – are huge.”

We're pleased to see that many of the concerns expressed by CRN since our founding five years ago seem to be making inroads into conversations at high levels.

(Incidentally, this is not the first time we have talked about horizon scanning here. In fact, we took part last year in a two-hour interview as part of a project supported by the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.)

Mike Treder

Risk Delight

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world.

— Jack Gilbert

Vertical Farming in NYC?

Amber waves of grain on the 15th floor? A "green sky" solution that means fewer carbon miles for food?

Vertical farms may not be the answer to all our problems, but they certainly are an intriguing concept.

I'm especially enamored by this proposed project, just a few miles from where I live:

You can read much more about vertical farming in this long entry at the TreeHugger blog, and also here on our blog.

Mike Treder

Geoengineering: Go slow! Carbon reduction: Hurry!

Environmental scientist Joseph Romm, on his Climate Progress blog, tells us that...

...all our dawdling on climate action this decade is having real impact on the atmosphere:

• Concentrations of CO2 jumped 2.4 ppm in 2007, taking us to 385 ppm (preindustrial levels hovered around 280 through 1850).
• That is an increase of 0.6% (or 19 billion tons). If we stay at that growth rate, we’ll be at 465 ppm by 2050 — and that assumes (improbably) that the various carbon sinks don’t keep saturating (see here and here).
• Levels of methane (a far more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) rose last year for the first time since 1998, perhaps an early indication of thawing permafrost.

In Australia, the Sydney Morning Herald describes the unwelcome news with this headline:

Carbon output goes off the chart

In its annual index of greenhouse gas emissions, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) found atmospheric carbon dioxide, the primary driver of global climate change, rose 0.6 per cent, or 19 billion tonnes, last year.

What do they mean by "off the chart"?

First, we can look at this graph (below) from the NOAA, which shows the continuing rise in global carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations. The red line shows the trend together with seasonal variations. The black line indicates the trend that emerges when the seasonal cycle has been removed.

[Click image to enlarge]

But an even more striking way to look at the evidence is to compare today's atmospheric CO2 levels with levels from the last 420,000 years:

Note that the chart above was produced in 1999, and shows modern CO2 levels at less than 300 parts per million (ppm). If you extended the red line to our current level of about 385 ppm, then it truly would be "off the chart."

The alarming correlation with global average temperatures (gold line) suggests that we likely will experience highly dangerous warming conditions over the next several decades -- indeed, unprecedented over the previous half-billion years -- leading to extreme climate chaos.

So, what can be done?

Is geoengineering part of the solution? Should we start making plans, for example, to inject massive amounts of sulphates into the atmosphere to simulate the effects of numerous volcanic eruptions, thereby creating a cooling effect?

No, probably not...

Pumping tiny sulphate particles into the atmosphere to create a sunshield that would keep the planet cool was first suggested as a solution to global warming by Edward Teller, a physicist was best known for his involvement in the development of the hydrogen bomb.

Simone Tilmes of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, US, used computer models to see how a sulphate sunshade would affect the ozone layer, which protects us from harmful UV rays. She says it could have "a drastic impact".

An article from Cosmos magazine reports it this way:

A plan to inject sulphate aerosols into the stratosphere, as a quick fix to counteract global warming, may drastically increase Arctic ozone depletion and slow the recovery of the Antarctic ozone hole, researchers warn. . .

One scheme proposes that the sulphate aerosols could be used to whiten clouds and cool the planet. The idea is based around a cooling effect detected after the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, a Filipino volcano that pumped sulphates into the atmosphere.

To probe the idea further, researchers in Germany and the U.S., led by Simone Tilmes at the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, analysed atmospheric data following the eruption. But what they found suggested that the sulphates would also react with chlorine in the cold conditions of the Arctic and Antarctic to deplete atmospheric ozone.

The Cosmos article also says:

A number of 'geoengineering' schemes have been proposed in recent years as possible ways for us to deflect the Sun's heat or reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Examples include positioning giant mirrors in orbit around the Earth in order to deflect sunlight, seeding clouds with seawater to increase their whiteness and therefore reflectivity, and 'ocean fertilisation', whereby algal blooms are stimulated to encourage the capture of CO2 from the atmosphere.

None of these plans have been proven on a large scale, and most are infeasible due to high costs or potentially dangerous side effects.

As we have stated before, CRN believes that some geoengineering approaches may have merit, but that they should be studied in great detail before being attempted, and that they should be modeled extensively and, if possible, trial tested. The risk of unanticipated consequences is just too great for us to act precipitously.

Jamais Cascio, CRN's Global Futures Strategist, puts it this way:

Should geoengineering be required, it should be done as carefully and as reversibly as possible. More research into geoengineering is especially important in order to know what not to do.

If climate disaster hits faster and harder than anticipated, desperate people will try desperate measures, including geoengineering. We need to be able to identify the choices that won't just make things worse.

Is all this gloomy enough for you?

We have a serious problem on our hands, and the cure might turn out worse than the disease.

But just to pile things on even more, check this recent news about a stunning climate feedback: Beetle tree kills release more carbon than fires. From Joe Romm:

New reseach published in the journal Nature, “Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change,” quantifies the current and future impact just from the beetle’s warming-driven devastation in British Columbia:

...the cumulative impact of the beetle outbreak in the affected region during 2000–2020 will be 270 megatonnes carbon... This impact converted the forest from a small net carbon sink to a large net carbon source.

[Picture shows forests turned red by beetle.]

No wonder the carbon sinks are saturating faster than we thought (see here) — unmodeled impacts of climate change are destroying them:

Insect outbreaks such as this represent an important mechanism by which climate change may undermine the ability of northern forests to take up and store atmospheric carbon, and such impacts should be accounted for in large-scale modelling analyses.

This sounds like something from the plot of an apocalyptic eco-disaster novel. Unfortunately, it's not fiction, but fact.

What can we do instead?

If it wasn't before, it should be abundantly clear by now that we need to mount an aggressive, Apollo-like program to convert as much energy production as possible from fossil fuels to clean, renewable sources.

CRN favors deep investments in wind, solar, tidal, wave, and geothermal energy infrastructures. One often overlooked part of the solution is concentrated solar thermal power, and new generations of nuclear energy production should be considered as well.

What we must not do is sit around and wait and debate and delay while CO2 levels grow past the 400 ppm mark over the next eight years. They are going to grow to that level and beyond no matter what we do, of course, but our best hope to stop the increase and keep them below 450 ppm is to get working immediately.

We -- and by that I mean the whole world, but especially the United States -- should have started in earnest long ago. But now, we can't afford to wait any longer.

Mike Treder

Open Source Nanoscience

In an essay on "Our Biotech Future," Freeman Dyson writes:

The domestication of biotechnology in everyday life may also be helpful in solving practical economic and environmental problems. Once a new generation of children has grown up, as familiar with biotech games as our grandchildren are now with computer games, biotechnology will no longer seem weird and alien. In the era of Open Source biology, the magic of genes will be available to anyone with the skill and imagination to use it. The way will be open for biotechnology to move into the mainstream of economic development, to help us solve some of our urgent social problems and ameliorate the human condition all over the earth. Open Source biology could be a powerful tool, giving us access to cheap and abundant solar energy.

What is interesting is that we could easily substitute 'nanotech' for 'biotech' in the above paragraph and give it just as much meaning. Take a look:

The domestication of nanotechnology in everyday life may also be helpful in solving practical economic and environmental problems. Once a new generation of children has grown up, as familiar with nanotech games as our grandchildren are now with computer games, nanotechnology will no longer seem weird and alien. In the era of Open Source nanoscience, the magic of molecular manufacturing will be available to anyone with the skill and imagination to use it. The way will be open for nanofactories to move into the mainstream of economic development, to help us solve some of our urgent social problems and ameliorate the human condition all over the earth. Open Source nanoscience could be a powerful tool, giving us access to cheap and abundant solar energy.

In fact, I'd previously written something quite similar about the "domestication" of nanofactories:

Product design will be made simple by CAD (computer aided design) programs—so simple that a child can do it—and that’s no exaggeration. New product prototypes can be created, tested, and refined in a matter of hours instead of months. No special expertise is needed. Just imagination, curiosity, and the desire to create.

To maximize the latent innovation potential in nanofactory proliferation, and to prevent illicit, unwise, or malicious product design and manufacture, CRN recommends that designers work (and play) with modular "nanoblocks" of various sizes and composition to create products. When combined with automated verification of design safety and protection of intellectual property, this will open up huge new areas for originality and improvement while maintaining safety and commercial viability.

Working with nanoblocks, designers of all ages, nations, and backgrounds can create to their hearts’ content. The combination of user-friendly CAD and rapid prototyping will result in a spectacular synergy, enabling unprecedented levels of innovation and development. Among the many remarkable benefits accruing to humanity from nanofactory proliferation will be this unleashing of millions of eager new minds, allowed for the first time to freely explore and express their brilliant creative energy.

So it appears that we and Dyson are thinking along the same lines, expecting bright futures for these powerful new technologies as they cross the threshold from laboratory to general use.

But still, questions must be raised. Can this be done safely and responsibly?

This is from another part of Dyson's essay:

If domestication of biotechnology is the wave of the future, five important questions need to be answered. First, can it be stopped? Second, ought it to be stopped? Third, if stopping it is either impossible or undesirable, what are the appropriate limits that our society must impose on it? Fourth, how should the limits be decided? Fifth, how should the limits be enforced, nationally and internationally? I do not attempt to answer these questions here. I leave it to our children and grandchildren to supply the answers.

How soon, then, should we begin the process of answering these questions? And in comparing nanotech and biotech, is either more urgent to address than the other?

CRN would contend, of course, that rapid progress being made toward molecular manufacturing makes it imperative that we find answers to many important questions, and that we do it soon -- before the technology catches us unprepared. Especially since the game-changing shift from a pre-nanofactory world to a nanofactory-enabled world could turn out to be sudden, swift, and wrenchingly transformative.

Others might well say the same about biotech and be equally correct. The point is that the future is rushing toward us -- or we toward it -- as though we're driving extremely fast on an unmarked road in the dark with no signs or markers to follow.

Where are we going?

Mike Treder

Distant Futurity

Not Necessarily Relevant Quote of the Week:

Judging from the past, we may safely infer that no living species will transmit its unaltered likeness to a distant futurity. And of the species now living very few will transmit progeny of any kind to a far distant futurity.

— Charles Darwin

Doing the Impossible

IMPOSSIBLE! Preposterous! These words are often thrown about when people declare certain things to be scientifically ridiculous.

Aliens cannot reach the Earth in spaceships, they proclaim, because the distance between stars is too great. Telepathy is impossible since the brain does not emit or receive messages. And it's impossible to instantaneously transport an object from A to B because you cannot know the location and momentum of all its atoms -- teleportation would violate the Heisenberg uncertainty principle.

Yet if you carefully analyse these examples, you realise that they are merely impossible today or in the near future. The real question is, are they impossible with technologies that lie decades, centuries or even millennia beyond ours? Perhaps these "impossibilities" are merely very difficult engineering problems.

So says Michio Kaku, the renowned physicist who was one of the developers of string field theory, in a New Scientist article titled "Impossible physics: Never say never." Kaku then reminds us of Arthur C. Clarke's famous admonition that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

An accompanying article by Michael Marshall lists ten things "that were once thought scientifically impossible," including heavier-than-air flight, harnessing nuclear energy, space flight, black holes, and many more.

A couple of months ago on this blog, we wrote about a new three-part BBC TV special in which "Michio Kaku explores the cutting edge science of today, tomorrow, and beyond."

In Part 3 of that series, Kaku asserts that we are "on the brink of a revolution which will give us control -- exquisite control -- of our physical world." He says:

Today we can manipulate individual atoms, but this is just the beginning of a journey -- a journey which will ultimately give us the power to manipulate the very stuff of our universe: matter itself.

And later in that program Kaku spends several minutes describing the near-certain and near-future development of personal fabricators, also known as desktop nanofactories.

Impossible? Preposterous? Scientifically ridiculous?

These words were often thrown about just a few years ago by people denying the claims of those who had spent many years studying the physics, chemistry, and engineering concepts behind advanced nanotechnology and molecular manufacturing.

But perceptions can change quickly when science advances rapidly.

And today, what was declared impossible not long ago is starting to enter the mainstream of scientific thought. Broad public acceptance may not be far away. Soon after that, we hope, serious discussions of the many implications of this transformative new technology will take place at the highest levels of governance and at the grassroots as well.

Mike Treder