From an article yesterday in the Dallas Morning News:
Jeff Wacker, a futurist with Plano-based Electronic Data Systems Corp., said the evolution of nanotech into the consumer arena will be marked by three phases. “I think there’s the mild, I think there’s the wild, and I think there’s the magical,” he said.
At the “mild” end of the scale in the next few years are lighter, stronger, frictionless and more efficient upgrades to existing materials, such as in airplane wings, solar panels and batteries.
At the “magical” conclusion, 10 years or more down the road, consumers can expect to see nano assemblers, minuscule factories using billions of molecule-size machines to build nearly any product imaginable out of a pile of raw materials.
Okay, so “factories using billions of molecule-size machines to build nearly any product imaginable out of a pile of raw materials” is an excellent description of a nanofactory. And the time frame of “10 years or more down the road” seems to fit neatly into CRN’s projection that nanofactory technology “likely will” be developed by 2015, and “almost certainly will” by 2020.
The article also refers to a nanotech study published last month (which we discussed here) by the Joint Economic Committee of the US Congress:
By the 2015 to 2020 time frame, the authors predict, nano robots will be patrolling the human body, repairing damaged DNA and sending you a summary of your physical condition.
As outrageous as it sounds, the report notes that a lot of the groundwork for this technology is already being laid: “Since the path from initial discovery to product application takes 10 to 12 years, the initial scientific foundations for these technologies are already starting to emerge from laboratories.”
And then it goes on to describe the nanocar, which we told you about last year:
Rice University, for example, has demonstrated that molecular machines are possible with its “nanocar.” Last year, researchers at the school revealed that they had attached a motor to the molecule-size vehicle. The motor is powered by a beam of light, making it the first nanovehicle with its own engine. Roughly 20,000 of the cars could be parked side-by-side across the diameter of a human hair, the scientists said.
Lead researcher James Tour said that scientists are merely simulating the processes found in nature when they create the nanocar and use other tiny machines to build individual products.
“We want to construct things from the bottom up, one molecule at a time, in much the same way that biological cells use enzymes to assemble proteins and other supermolecules,” Dr. Tour said in a news release. “Everything that’s produced through biology – from the tallest redwood to largest whale – is built one molecule at a time. Nanocars and other synthetic transporters may prove to be a suitable alternative for bottom-up systems where biological methods aren’t practical.”
It appears that light bulbs are going on throughout the mainstream media, and even among high-level government groups, recognizing that the revolutionary, ”magical” potential of nanotechnology is not that far away.
Mike Treder is a fellow of the IEET, and the Executive Director of the non-profit
Center for Responsible Nanotechnology, an organization working to raise awareness of the issues presented by advanced nanotechnology.
IEET Blog