Will Real Sustainability Require Symbiosis?

For around 150,000 years humanity lived in relative harmony with nature. That would seem obvious, as we were an integral part of nature, as much as any other species.  Now, however, we have elevated ourselves above other species in our ability to change and control our environment, but our ability to understand our surroundings has lagged behind and the short-sightedness of humans is visible all around us.  How long can we continue in this direction?

Will Electric Cars Ever Become More Than City Runabouts?

People, especially in North America, love their cars. The challenge of maintaining the personal mobility so dear to North Americans demands technological innovation on a number of fronts.  While, in the near term, it looks like batteries will power some vehicles, there are practical limitations that may doom the battery-powered car in the long run.  Weight, or power density (power to weight ratio), is a major concern.  The efficiency of an electric vehicle is degraded if it has to haul a battery weighing hundreds of pounds, and the cost of the battery combined with its finite lifespan may make the electric vehicle economically un-justifiable – I haven’t yet heard from those saddled with replacing their hybrid’s battery yet.  Beyond that, there are conversion losses, both in batteries during charging and discharging and in the running of electric motors, that further decrease the efficiency of electric vehicles.  Either new battery technologies with much higher power density will be developed, or the technology of choice may eventually be hydrogen, whether internally combusted (the more ready and better understood technology) or used to produce electricity via a fuel cell.  That’s all in the near term, however, and more effective technologies may be not far off.

Nano-surfaces Could Keep the House Clean and Reduce Traffic Accidents

While doing dishes this morning I suddenly realized that a counter top with a surface enhanced with nanotechnology devices could make my life easier.  What if nano-devices embedded in the counter top could recognize food and dirt and distinguish between those substances and the dishes and silverware?   On recognizing food or dirt the nano-devices would synchronously begin moving it, in tiny increments of course, all in the same direction.  The food, dirt, and even bacteria would be passed, bucket-brigade fashion, to one end of the table where they would drop off into a trash receptacle designed for the purpose.  Nano-devices in the counter surface could also detect bacteria and viruses and break their cell walls or otherwise kill them.  Such a technology would have many more applications, however.

Self-Assembly Will Be Important to Many Nanotechnology Products

On December 4, 2009 Scientists at National Physical Laboratory in the UK revealed the world’s smallest snowman and created a youtube video holiday card with it.  It’s a beautiful and funny demonstration of what can be done at sub-visible scales, but also illustrates one of the key problems of nanotech.  To be truly beneficial, nanotechnology must produce results that affect human lives, and it is rare that a single nano-event can do that.  That means nanotechnology devices must be produced in huge quantities for most applications, and that certainly won’t be possible with the techniques that produced the tiny snowman.  That is why a lot of research is being done into molecular self-assembly.

One example is this work being done at The University of Illinois, in which capillary action is used to bend nano-thin silicon in an origami-like process.  Other interesting work on self-assembly is going on also at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, who released an article describing some of their results in this area.  (Wish I had more time to spend on this technology – anyone need a highly skilled project manager with past careers in computer engineering, high tech product development, and technical documentation?)

I dream of paint-on solar cells and other active-coating applications.  The components might be painted on in successive coats, the order of coatings and post-painting treatments with light or heat possibly critical, before the end product, a solar cell for example, would be in place, ready for the connection of electrodes to draw off the power.  I want this for my house, like, yesterday.

Is the “Data Glut” Blurring the Cutting Edge of Scientific Development?

Is there so much data now on the internet that it’s actually becoming harder to find the information you seek? As scientific research continues, the quantity of information (“data glut”) on the internet expands.  Quality of information is another issue.  Will it become increasingly harder to identify and reach the cutting edge in a given field? If the pace of scientific innovation and the accumulation and integration of knowledge continues to accelerate, as Ray Kurzweil suggests, will it reach a point where groups developing different or similar technologies will become incapable of keeping up with each others’ innovations? Will the research efforts of human society become less efficient, with more duplication of efforts, as we go forward? Is this already occurring?

New Materials May Emerge Solely to Support Nanotechnology

Self-assembling materials may require new directions in materials development. One of the most amazing advancements in nanotechnology is the ability to engineer materials to self-assemble into new materials or add new attributes.  The ability of certain molecules to bond in planned ways with others and produce new materials is at the cutting edge of nanotechnology product development, and will probably remain there for some time to come.

One-by-one assembly of nano-scale devices is practically useless for most applications. The assembly of nano-scale devices on a one-by-one basis yields so few of the devices that it has little practical use except in research.  To make practical use of nanotechnology devices it is necessary to make them in enormous numbers and, so far, self-assembly seems the only option.  Inventing new materials with applications in self assembly could be one of the next big directions in science.

A key direction for advancement is in the mastery of self assembly at larger scales. While nanotechnology products are currently limited mostly to coatings and special materials, the promise of micro-scale and larger devices being produced by self assembly is great.  After all, every living thing is an instance of self assembly.  While we are a long way from creating life forms, this hints at amazing advances in functionality for the devices we will create.

New materials that can be used in self-assembly processes could gain major importance. Materials that previously had no useful application may turn out to have potential as catalysts of self assembly, or as supporting materials in self assembly processes.  Devices larger than nano scale might be self-assembled in fluid suspensions, and the fluids involved may be new to us, for example.  Chemistry and physics will be key disciplines in the pursuit of commercial viable self assembly processes, and the results will be exciting.

As always, I welcome your comments.  – Tim

Interesting Information:
Self Assembly and Nanotechnology,  George M. Whitesides, Department of Chemistry, Harvard University

Major Downturns Have an Upside – The Emergence and Growth of New Business Ideas

Economic recessions create bursts of economic and cultural change. Did the buggy and coach business just fade away?  Or did those companies die most quickly in the Panic of 1907-1908 and the Post-WWI Recession, only to be replaced by rapidly expanding businesses involved with motor vehicles, and a rising economic tide to lift them?  What new inventions attained increasingly levels of acceptance and use as people struggled for every advantage to dig themselves out of the recessionary problems of the Great Depression?  Were businesses developing lighter construction materials, alternative energy systems, and fuel conservation technologies some of the positive outcomes of the Oil Crisis and recession of 1973-1975?

Better Regulation of Business Will Be Necessary as Population Explodes and Energy Prices Rise

Big corporations are like big sharks.  They’re not evil.  They’re just eating. I read this clever observation several years ago on CDBaby, and had the immediate realization that WE have to swim with those sharks, and our shark cage (government) just isn’t protecting us like it once did.  On this, the eve of release of Michael Moore’s new movie “Capitalism: A Love Story“, I just have to write about the impact of capitalism on our future, and how we might possibly avoid sliding into an almost feudal state where a tiny upper class of owners dominates a huge but painfully poor mass of wage slaves. 

The Future of Energy: Things Never Change So Much …

Things never change so much as they stay the same. That’s the saying, anyway, and I figure I’ll see how things balance out if I stick around long enough.  I expect that there will be surprises, and some advances people expect won’t happen, or will be disappointing, while other inventions will become mainstays of our civilization.  Inevitably, the deciding factor behind the decision to discard or keep something involves money, and I believe that will extend to our energy infrastructure.

Is Fear the Media Tool of the Future, and Will Health Care for All Ever Occur in America?

Will fear and media continue to combine as a powerful political tool? It has been very interesting to see how the use of fear resurfaces as a tool for political and economic manipulation through the media.  Media has become so pervasive in (invasive of) our lives in this era of ever-expanding technologies that it is interesting to speculate on how much farther it can go.  Cellphone-computers in our pockets and cars and the internet everywhere in most of our personal and work lives suggests that we won’t be moving away from the media, but rather closer to them.  This is a particular concern as ever more advanced marketing uses this media to manipulate us into buying, voting, or otherwise behaving as someone else wishes.

Whose Lives Will Change Most as Fossil Fuel Prices Rise?

Fossil fuel prices will rise. There’s no doubting that, in the absence of any other supply of cheap, high volume energy, fossil fuel supplies will decline, and prices will rise as population continues to explode.  It is interesting to examine who is most likely to feel the effects of the change, as I don’t think many people, at least in North America where I live, are thinking about it.  In the end, it appears that the middle classes in the most developed countries and in the temperate climates will feel the effects the most.

Will Anything Reduce Global Birth Rates and Carbon Emissions Except Fossil Fuel Shortages?

Today the news proclaimed that agreements were made at the G-8 summit in Italy to hold global warming to a maximum of 2 degrees Centrigrade.  It was a very positive step to see that the United States has finally joined most of the rest the world in making a commitment to fighting climate change.  Will people really be able to do this, though?  And aren’t population and energy use just as important if not moreso?

Can a Video Screen Be Painted on Using Nanotechnology?

Combining the ideas of wi-fi, nanotechnology, microtechnology, and optics could produce a video screen that can be painted on a surface in layers that will then self-assemble into operating, light-producing video screens.  Perhaps each pixel could be a tiny nanobot incorporating one or more colors of LED that it can turn on and off.  Energy can be derived from a gel or circulating liquid bath (with the added advantage of cooling the nanobots).  The controls to make each nanobot turn its light sources on and off can be implemented through data-encoded near infrared light so as to be invisible.  Such a light might provide an energy source to the pixelbots as well.  Could a modulated light source transmit enough data to address each nanobot individually  and pass control information quickly enough for the whole screen assembly to produce real-time video?

The “Glide Path” to Sustainability will Raise Recycling to a Large Scale Art

As population declines in the latter half of the 21st century new construction will be cut to a minimum, and renovation and recycling of existing buildings will dominate the construction industry.  Few new buildings will be needed as populstion decreases, growth will no longer be the predominant economic theme, and decreasing tax bases will reduce public funding. People may move out of some neighborhoods and towns and collect in others, probably to live closer to places of employment, education, etc., and reduce their cost of living.  Will smart individuals start working today to build profitable businesses that take advantage of the changes in our future?

I Hate Lawns

Yes, it’s true. I hate lawns. I didn’t always hate them, though I never particularly liked cutting and maintaining them. (It helped when I was a child and was paid to cut them.)