Comments on: Nanotechnology scenarios from Europe’s Nanologue http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2377 examining transformative technology Wed, 03 Apr 2013 18:23:47 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.4 By: Brian Wang http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2377#comment-72750 Brian Wang Wed, 06 Dec 2006 22:55:12 +0000 http://www.foresight.org/nanodot/?p=2377#comment-72750 I had read this report a few weeks ago. I found it to be mostly focused on nanoscale technology. I also believe that it does not have a correct starting point for its projections. The what is the current situation and status of development baseline is not correct. Such a projection needs to have not just a correct pulse of what is happening in nanotechnology but also the situation and scale of problems in the application areas that they are suggesting will be impacted. For example, if they say that nanotechnology will have a real impact on energy conversion and storage then they need to know what a real impact in that space would look like. Also, the scenario 2 situation needs to consider the scale of problems with existing technology. Scenario 2 indicates it is good that we are stopping problems with nanoparticles, but we may not have addressed problems like coal energy usage. Coal is spewing 20,000 tons of uranium and thorium into the air every year. It is putting over 200 thousand of pounds of mercury and arsenic into the environment. 400,000 people are dieing every year from coal pollution not including global warming impacts. Most of the premature coal deaths are in China but 27,000 per year occur in the USA. So scenarios where we were delaying solutions that might reduce coal usage by 50% (1 terawatt of some form of clean electricity), at the cost of a hundred lives would be a good tradeoff. Ideally you would not want to have any deaths but the pragmatic choice is to reduce the deaths that are actually occuring. I had read this report a few weeks ago. I found it to be mostly focused on nanoscale technology. I also believe that it does not have a correct starting point for its projections. The what is the current situation and status of development baseline is not correct. Such a projection needs to have not just a correct pulse of what is happening in nanotechnology but also the situation and scale of problems in the application areas that they are suggesting will be impacted.
For example, if they say that nanotechnology will have a real impact on energy conversion and storage then they need to know what a real impact in that space would look like.

Also, the scenario 2 situation needs to consider the scale of problems with existing technology. Scenario 2 indicates it is good that we are stopping problems with nanoparticles, but we may not have addressed problems like coal energy usage. Coal is spewing 20,000 tons of uranium and thorium into the air every year. It is putting over 200 thousand of pounds of mercury and arsenic into the environment. 400,000 people are dieing every year from coal pollution not including global warming impacts. Most of the premature coal deaths are in China but 27,000 per year occur in the USA.

So scenarios where we were delaying solutions that might reduce coal usage by 50% (1 terawatt of some form of clean electricity), at the cost of a hundred lives would be a good tradeoff. Ideally you would not want to have any deaths but the pragmatic choice is to reduce the deaths that are actually occuring.

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