How Nanotech Can Address Global Problems

October 14, 2008

Here's an interesting Q&A from Nanotech Briefs. It asks four industry experts to discuss the world's environmental and energy challenges and how nanotechnology could help address them.

The experts:
Jens Greiser, strategic marketing manager at FEI Co.
Michael Naughton, professor of physics at Boston College
Bart Riley, founder and CTO of A123 Systems
B.J. Stanbery, CEO and founder of HelioVolt Corp.

The editors asked these experts eight questions, among them:

• In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges we face in the 21st century with regard to energy and the environment?
• How will nanotechnology help us deal with these global challenges?
• Fossil fuels account for nearly three-quarters of the world's energy consumption. How can nanotech change this dependency?
• How does the U.S. compare globally with regard to nanotech advancements/funding in these areas?

Some highlights:

• The biggest challenges: National infrastructure and balancing energy demands with sustainability.
• How will nanotech help? It allows you to access physical and chemical mechanisms that are otherwise inaccessible.
• How can nanotech change fossil fuel dependency? Better performance of energy generation and storage.
• How does the United States compare to Europe? Venture capital in the United States  is better and Europe has a lot to  learn from it.

This is just a smattering of some very interesting and insightful comments. It's not a long article, so I suggest you read it.

Image: Igor Kopelnitsky