Ken Silverstein EnergyBiz Insider Editor-in-Chief

The science is in the public eye. And, like anything with such high-hopes attached, there's a lot of overestimation and grandiose claims that have yet to be substantiated. But, nanotechnology offers some unprecedented goals and particularly in the areas of solar and wind power as well as fuel cells and transmission systems. Contrary to popular thought, nano-science is not a sudden phenomenon but an ongoing evolution that in certain areas appears ripe for commercialization.

"The level of interest has grown enormously worldwide over the last few years in the scientific community," says Ryne Raffaelle, director of the Nano Powered Research Lab at Rochester Institute of Technology. "With that much effort being put into it, you will start to see advancement in the near term." The lab is working with numerous corporations as well as NASA on fuel cell and solar cell research.

Nanotechnology permits scientists to rearrange atoms and to build matter from the ground up, allowing any substance to be rearranged with atomic precision. Any chemical structure that is not disallowed by the laws of physics can be rebuilt. So, scientists can create new building blocks that produce materials with the exact properties they desire, which are generally smaller, stronger and lighter than current technologies.

That sounds fancy. But the practical effect of such research is enormous: carbon nanotubes, for example, are the most conductive materials known and could be used to modernize the transmission system to save a lot of power. That particular technology has been used in cars since 1997. Producing those nanotubes on a mass level, however, is still problematic and particularly in the energy sector.

Wind power, meantime, could be transformed. The wing span of turbines is much bigger and is now about 70 meters. The kind of forces and mechanical stresses put on those turbines is incredible. By putting nano-composites into the design, such wind mills can get higher performance. And, solar cells that turn sunlight into electric currents could become more efficient and diminish the global need for carbon-based fuels that are thought to cause global warming.

In the energy bill just passed, the United States will spend $ 1 billion annually to research and advance the science. Medical applications are considered by many to be the first nanotechnologies that will surface in the market. But energy-and-environmental-related technologies are not far behind.

The idea is fast becoming real. "The company has been working to create a powerful combination of nanomaterials and novel cell design to demonstrate the power of nanotechnology," says David Bothwell, director of Nanodynamics in Buffalo, New York. "The resulting fuel cell system is lightweight, portable, compact and can be operated using conventional hydrocarbon fuels, such as propane."

Evolutionary Science

Nanotechnology is an evolutionary science -- not something that has just magically appeared in recent years. About 50 to 100 years ago, devices were assembled at the macro level but through advancements in technology, they have been reduced in size substantially to the "nano-level" where components can be more effectively manipulated.

According to Pradeep Haldar, head of the nanotech center at the University of Albany in New York State, nanotechnology can be viewed along two lines: evolutionary science and revolutionary science. The former already exists but scientists are trying to understand it better and to enhance performance. The latter is 10-20 years out. It's about building devices from the ground up and one atom at a time -- something that could create a monumental impact on mankind and on the energy world in particular.

"At some point, both of these arrows will converge," says Haldar. "I would not say this is a lot of hype. I would say there are a lot of ifs and buts."

A company called Ener1 out of Ft. Lauderdale plans to manufacture high-rate lithium batteries for use in hybrid vehicles. The market for such cars is only expected to increase and Ener1 believes it can mass-produce the batteries to power these automobiles on a cost competitive basis. Meanwhile, Konarka Technologies, which develops power plastics that convert light to energy and Solaris Nanosciences, which makes advanced nanomaterials for devices that harvest light for a variety of applications, have joined forces to improve the efficiency of solar cells.

Money Needed

To be sure, the development and commercialization of those new ideas takes money. According to news reports, close to 700 nanotech companies now exist. About $711 million in venture capital funding was directed to such companies in 2002 and 2003, says Lux Capital. By 2015, the National Science Foundation says that $1 trillion will get invested into those companies with the most promise.

No doubt, companies want to establish themselves now. Patents have been filed and more are coming in every day. Because nanotechnology could cover almost every area of human endeavor, there's room for competition and innovation. And, there's also room for lawsuits, says Ray Van Dyke, an intellectual property lawyer with Nixon Peabody in Washington, D.C. It will take time to sort out the market, he adds, and those in the industry can probably expect new regulations to make the rules safer and fairer.

"If you look at energy globally, we have a crisis looming," adds Scot Mize, president of the Foresight Nanotech Institute. "We need to invest more heavily to get past fossil fuels that are limited resources. I look at nanotechnology as inevitable and someone will own this new industry. I am optimistic because there are a lot of strong players (such as GE, IBM and NASA) that are involved and that are working hard to make it happen."

Nanotech's promise is huge. The science is already being commercialized and most notably in the area of clean energy technologies. The most far-reaching implications of the phenomenon are still unknown but have the potential to ease the fuel shortages and environmental threats that are now in such sharp focus. The push to advance nanotechnology is therefore as strong as ever.

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