Nanotechnology: Hell or Heaven?

Perhaps a little bit of both

Ronald Bailey | October 27, 2004

When it comes to the possibilities of nanotechnology, it can be hard to know what to expect: glittering visions of abundance and long, healthy life spans; fears of out-of-control world-destroying devices, pervasive surveillance tyrannies, and devastating nanotech wars; or maybe all of the above. The Foresight Institute's First Conference on Advanced Nanotechnology held last week across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C., offered hope, fear, and audacious scenarios for the future.

First, the fabulous visions. Sociologist Bryan Bruns, a research associate at the Foresight Institute, talked about "Applying Nanotechnology to the Challenges of Global Poverty." Some 2.7 billion of our fellow human beings now live on less than $2 per day, with 1.1 billion of them living on less than $1 per day. Two billion have no access to electricity.

To illustrate what nanotech progress might do for the world's poor, Bruns imagined a potential Whole Earth Catalog for 2025, loaded with nanotech devices. He found low energy ultra-efficient water filtration systems that could purify any contaminated or saline water into fresh water suitable for drinking or irrigation. (An earlier presentation by Gayle Pergamit described a water filtration system using nanopore membranes now being developed by Aguavia, in which a six-inch cube of membranes could purify 100,000 gallons of water a day.)

Even the world's poorest could shop this 2025 catalog for cheap solar roofing panels. The sturdy plastic panels are composed of "failsoft" nanocells that automatically reroute electric flows if the panels are cut, nailed, or damaged. As evidence that such panels are possible, Bruns cited the work of Konarka, a company developing cheap solar panels that come in rolls like Saran Wrap.

This 2025 catalog would also offer "comsets"—extremely powerful energy-sparing computers that would fit entirely inside the frames of eyeglasses or in jewelry. The comsets would come complete with 120 courses for learning different skills.

Nanoclinics will be a popular choice in 2025 for those living far from hospitals and doctors. Nanoclinics the size of suitcases, powered by those cheap solar panels, will contain a full range of diagnostics and therapeutics, along with preventive and restorative treatments.

"Turn trash into treasure," reads the 2025 catalog copy for nanorefineries that can break down any unwanted consumer items, sewage sludge, and any other waste. The nanorefineries could be linked directly to nanofabs to provide feedstocks for producing new consumer goods.

Chris Phoenix, director of research for the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, talked about "Clean Molecular Manufacturing," whose slogan could be "No Atom Left Behind." Nanotech manufacturing means doing chemistry mechanically—building products with each atom precisely placed, in which all molecular bonds are strong enough to survive at room temperature. Phoenix also believes that nanotech manufacturing will tend to use the lighter elements, such as nitrogen and carbon, at the top of the periodic table. Consequently nanotech products will be less toxic and easy to recycle. You could, for example, just burn your laptop to dispose of it cleanly.

Molecular computers produced by nanotech manufacturing will be one million times smaller than today's; motors could be just 50 nanometers across. (A nanometer is about the length of ten hydrogen atoms lined up.) These fabrication miracles will be achieved through autoproductive manufacturing. A nanotech factory can build new factories, leading to exponential increases in manufacturing capability in very short order.

Phoenix foresees the computing power of today's Earth Simulator available in a cubic millimeter run on two watts of electricity. Nanomaterials will be 100 times stronger than steel, making possible the 10-pound airplane, yacht, and car. (For comparison, a hang glider today typically weighs 60 pounds.) "This sounds outrageous," said Phoenix, "But it's completely plausible."

In a presentation on "The Top Ten Impacts of Molecular Manufacturing," Phoenix predicted that products made using a mature molecular nanotechnology would cost $1 per pound to make. After nanotech factories hit their stride, molecular manufacturing will provide more manufacturing capacity than all the world's factories offer today. We will see the advent of cheap solar power and cheap energy storage, and inconceivably cheap high-powered computers the size of wristwatches. The components needed to put a kilogram of material into orbit would fit inside of a suitcase. Nanotechnology would make it possible for 100 billion people to live sustainably at a modern American standard of living, while indoor agriculture using high-efficiency inflatable ten-pound diamond greenhouses would help restore the world's ecology. The ultimate limit to economic growth seems to be heat pollution, the waste energy radiated away from nanotech devices.

According to Robert Freitas, the medical nanotech guru at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, not only will nanotechnology provide us with a lot of cool stuff and eliminate global poverty, it will also help us live a really long time. In his lecture on "Nanomedicine and Medical Nanorobotics," Freitas predicted that we would see in the next five years biologically active nanoparticles used as diagnostic sensors. He also described a project at the University of Michigan to use tecto-dendrimers, complex tree shaped molecules that could be designed to simultaneously sense and destroy cancer cells.

But Freitas' vision and true passion is medical nanorobots. He has designed respirocytes composed of 18 billion precisely arranged atoms, consisting of a shell of sapphire with an onboard computer. It will be embedded with rotors to sort oxygen from carbon dioxide molecules. These respirocytes would be able to hold oxygen at 100,000 atmospheres of pressure. Just five cc's of respirocytes, 1/1000th the volume of the body's 30 trillion oxygen and carbon dioxide carrying red blood cells, could supply enough oxygen to keep alive for four hours a person whose heart had stopped.

The nanotech future sketched above sounds truly glorious. But nanotech dystopia also beckons.

After all, the Foresight Institute was primarily established not to celebrate the advent of nanotechnology, but to address concerns about the possible catastrophic misuse of it. The dystopic nanotech vision was summed up by the problem of "gray goo," in which nanotech self-replicators either escape or are deliberately released and convert the entire biosphere into copies of themselves in a matter of days.