Green Nanotechnology

Environmental degradation is a serious problem with many sources and causes. One of the biggest causes is farming. Greenhouses can greatly reduce water use, land use, runoff, and topsoil loss. Mining is another serious problem. When most structure and function can be built out of carbon and hydrogen by molecular manufacturing, there will be far less use for minerals, and mining operations mostly can be shut down. Manufacturing technologies that pollute can also be scaled back.

In general, improved technology allows operations that pollute to be more compact and contained, and cheap manufacturing allows improvements to be deployed rapidly at low cost. Storable solar energy will reduce ash, soot, hydrocarbon, NOx, and CO2 emissions, as well as oil spills. In most cases, there will be strong economic incentives to adopt newer, more efficient technologies as rapidly as possible. Even in areas that currently do not have a technological infrastructure, self-contained molecular manufacturing will allow the rapid deployment of environment-friendly technology.

GREENHOUSES - Moving agriculture into greenhouses can recover most of the water used, by dehumidifying the exhaust air and treating and re-using runoff. Additionally, greenhouse agriculture requires less labor and far less land area than open-field agriculture, and provides greater independence from weather conditions including seasonal variations and droughts. Greenhouses, with or without thermal insulation, would be extremely cheap to build with nanotechnology. A large-scale move to greenhouse agriculture would reduce water use, land use, and weather-related food shortages.

WATER - A few basic problems create vast amounts of suffering and tragedy. According to this World Bank document, water is a major concern of the U.N. Almost half the world's population lacks access to basic sanitation, and almost 1.5 billion have no access to clean water. Of the water used in the world, 67% is used for agriculture, and another 19% for industry. Residential use accounts for less than 9%. Much industry can be directly replaced by molecular manufacturing. Agriculture can be moved into greenhouses. Residential water can be treated and recycled. Adoption of these steps could reduce water consumption by at least 50%, and probably 90%. Water-related diseases kill thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of children each day. This is entirely preventable with basic technology, cheap to manufacture—if the factories are cheap and portable.

PURIFICATION - Much water today is wasted because it is almost but not entirely pure. Simple, reliable mechanical and electrical treatment technologies can recover brackish or tainted water for agricultural or even domestic use. These technologies require only initial manufacturing and a modest power supply. Physical filters with nanometer-scale pores can remove 100% of bacteria, viruses, and even prions. An electrical separation technology that attracts ions to supercapacitor plates can remove salts and heavy metals. The ability to recycle water from any source for any use can save huge amounts of water, and allow the use of presently unusable water resources. It can also eliminate downstream pollution; a completely effective water filter also permits the generation of quite "dirty" waste streams from agricultural and industrial operations. As long as the waste is contained, it can be filtered, concentrated, and perhaps even purified and used profitably. As with anything built by nanotechnology, initial manufacturing costs for a water treatment system would be extremely low. Power will be cheap (see below). Well-structured filter materials and smaller actuators will allow even the smallest filter elements to be self-monitoring and self-cleaning. Self-contained, small, completely automated filter units can be integrated in systems scalable over a wide range.

SOLAR POWER - The main source of power today is the burning of carbon-containing fuels. This is generally inefficient, frequently non-renewable, and dumps carbon dioxide and other waste products (including radioactive substances from coal) into the atmosphere. Solar energy would be feasible in most areas of the globe if manufacturing and land were sufficiently cheap and energy storage were sufficiently effective. Solar electricity generation depends on either photovoltaic conversion, or concentrating direct sunlight. The former works, although with reduced efficiency, on cloudy days; the latter can be accomplished without semiconductors. In either case, not much material is required, and mechanical designs can be made simple and fairly easy to maintain.

With molecular manufacturing, sun-tracking designs can benefit from cheap computers and compact actuators. Energy can be stored efficiently for several days in relatively large flywheels built of thin diamond and weighted with water. Smaller energy storage systems can be built with diamond springs, providing a power density similar to chemical fuel storage and much higher than today's batteries. Water electrolysis and recombination provide scalable, storable, transportable energy. However, there is some cost in efficiency and in complexity of technology to deal safely with large-scale hydrogen storage or transportation.

Solar solutions can be implemented on an individual, village, or national scale. The energy of direct sunlight is approximately 1 kW per square meter. Dividing that by 10 to account for nighttime, cloudy days, and system inefficiencies, present-day American power demands (about 10 kW per person) would require about 100 square meters of collector surface per person. Multiplying this figure by a population of 325 million (estimated by the US Census Bureau for 2020) yields a requirement for approximately 12,500 square miles of area to be covered with solar collectors. This represents 0.35% of total US land surface area. Much of this could be implemented on rooftops, and conceivably even on road surfaces.

Comments

[Brett Bellmore]

Even with greenhouses, plants are a terrifically inefficient way of converting sunlight into food, topping out at about 8%, and more typically in the 2-3% range. So there's considerable potential for substituting nanotech for most of the plant, feeding synthetically derived chemicals directly into the cells growing the edible portion of the plant. (Such a device might even be artistically designed to look like a plant.) This could boost the efficiency of agriculture by a factor of ten or more over even intensive greenhouse agriculture, while limiting water usage to that which actually ends up in the final food product. (Either directly as moisture, or indirectly in the synthisis of carbohydrates.) Such a device would be equally capable of manufacturing animal food products, too.

Though, realistically, there's no need at all for the solar energy collection and food production components to be in the same place, except for nostalga.

I wonder if there'd even be time to get all those greenhouses up, before the food replicators became available?

[Mike Deering]

Brett, nanotech plants, great idea! Food replicators, even better idea! Re-engineer the people so that they can utilize any available energy source and recycle the atoms, best idea!

[Mr. Farlops]

Well sure, when we have fully mature MNT we can replace the entirety of agriculture and power human bodies on DC current but what do we do before then? I think that's the question being posed here.

Greenhouses, aquaculture and hydroponics fairly lowtech ways for the developing world to improve their living standards before all the blue sky stuff shows up.

[Mike Deering]

Good point. While wasting our time dreaming about mature nanotechnology, we should be designing nanotech water purification devices and assemblers to build diamondoid greenhouses.

[Alimorad Sarafrazi]

The nanotechnology is not well known in Iran. To start using its advantages in agriculture it is needed to get enough information on its application in agriculture. I would like to start some studies on the application of nanotechnology in greenhouse. I need any available information in any format preferably in pdf format. It would be grateful if you send me any information available. Thank you so much for your help in advance.
All the best
DrAlimorad Srafrazi
Plant Pests & Diseases Res.Inst.
Evin/Tabnak St.
P.O.Box 19395-1454
Tehran/Iran

7

[Chris Phoenix, CRN]

Dr. Srafrazi, it sounds like you are looking for near-term nanoscale technologies. That's not what we specialize in.

A search on Google found several of our pages, plus:
http://www.foresight.org/UTF/Unbound_LBW/chapt_8.html (more molecular manufacturing)

http://www.nanotechweb.org/articles/column/2/3/2/1
(nanoscale tech)

http://www.thesoydailyclub.com/Research/UofI01282005.asp
(more nanoscale tech)

Chris

[ALireza Rezazadeh]

Dear Dr.
Im from Shahed Univ.(Tehran)
in our uinversity , Tha nano group is growing, and im a member of this group in field of Agriculture.
I would be glad if we work some study in this field
my Ph. no.
Office 55277514
0912-272-6430

[Mike Treder, CRN]

Cool! I'm glad that our blog can serve as a way for people throughout the world to make useful connections.

[M.Damodhara Rao]

Dear Prof/Dr.

'NANOTECHNOLOGY', It is a very interesting and promissing technology for Agriculture. I would like to learn more about NANO. If any one has research material, please send me. I am a research scholar of Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, India, specialized in Soil and Water Conservation Engineering. I would like to work with the research group which concerns the applications of NANO in Agriculture.
Thank you

M.Damodhara Rao
Research Scholar
Department of Agricultural and Food Engineering
Indian Institute of Technology
Kharagpur-721 302, West Bengal, India
Phone: +91-9434368962

[Dr.R.Prakash]

Dear Doctor,
I am very much interested in the application of nanotechnology in Agriculture. Kindly let me know the future developments in this field.
I am working as Associate Professot at the college of Agriculture vellayani under Kerala Agricultural University At Trivandrum,Kerala India

[Vanessa]

What exactly is a nanotech water filter? I would be very interested to find out. What kind of filtration technology does it use?

[Carisa Frost]

Nanotechnology is a growth industry, ironically touted as 'the next big thing." However, nanoscale science, research, and manufacture present a complex and entirely new set of circumstances and situations never before faced by society.

I invite everyone interested in learning more to join us for the NABIS Conference, an important one day symposium featuring experts representing law, science, social science, business, medicine/healthcare, education - and ethics. Compelling issues surrounding nanotechnology will be explored in the context of currently available information.

NANOTECHNOLOGY IN SOCIETY’S CONTEXT
Wednesday, March 29, 2006 (early arrival reception on March 28)

THE UNIVERSITY CLUB OF CHICAGO
76 East Monroe St., Chicago, IL 60603
Michigan Room, 2ND floor

For more information,visit the NABIS web site at: www.NABISConference.com/2006, or contact Mary Beth Rebedeau, NABIS Managing Director, at (708) 361-6000 ext. 204, or [email protected]

[amir naqibi]

hi Dr.
i am amir naqibi.i am from iran.i am student in the petrolium university of technology.
i am working on the water purification with nanotechnology.i would be glad if you help me in this researching.my email address is [email protected].
thank you

[Dr.K.Perinbam]

Dear sir,
Is there any way to improve the yield of a plant by nano technology?If some paper published in this field please send to me.

[Saeed Ziaei-nejad]

Dear sir,
Please send me any information about application of nanotechnology in aquaculture.

[Dr Raghavendra Singh]

Dear Sir,
I am interested to know about the nano technology and its importance in agriculture. kindly send me the information regarding.

[masoud]

hi,p
lease send application nano in agri....

[NASAR VIRK]

Hello
I am going to start research in the field of plant biotechnology. these days i am preparing research proposal, in which i want to apply nanoparticles(Q dots( on a plant. if anybody have some material on this topic, please send it to me, i will be thankfull.
Regards
Nasar

[heba alfares]

Dear Dr.
I am going to start research in the field of plant biotechnology. these days i am preparing research proposal, in which i want to apply nanoparticles on a plant. if anybody have some material on this topic, please send it to me specially on seed germination can i found any research paper to help me in my proposal, i will be thankfull.
Regards

[Dr. T. S. Khuspe]

Dear Sir,
I am interested to know about the nano technology and its importance in agriculture. kindly send me the information regarding.

[Mortezaei,R]

Dear Sir,
PLZ help me for interested to know about the nanotechnology and its importance in aquaculture and also send me the information about done work university.
Thanks
Mortezaei

[srinivasan]

sir please send me about the use of nanotechnology in precision farming
and its general appliactions in agriculture

[Juno888]

..this is grreat..!I have not read it yet, but when I do, I will let you know what I think.

[Dr s. Elamathi]

I am working scientist iam interested to know more about nanotechnology application in agriculture kindly send material

[Dr T C M Naidu]

I am Plant Physiologis. I would like to know the possibility of increasing the productivity of crops using nanotechnology.