Why is Michigan betting on batteries?

Here are some raw notes and thoughts along the way to an article I'm writing for a Michigan publication about Gov. Jennifer Granholm's push for a lithium-ion battery infrastructure to save my state from ruin. I'm skeptical.

What prompted this rant was a piece an editor sent me written by Granholm in the Huffington Post: Michigan Will Lead The Green Industrial Revolution. Granholm writes:

In Michigan, we're not only redesigning the current generation of vehicles to be more fuel efficient, but as the world's epicenter for automotive research and design, we're literally redesigning the entire notion of the automobile. More here

Well, up in Mackinac, Granholm finally acknowledged the obvious -- that Asia is ahead of us. Nathan Bomey of Michigan Biz Review quotes her as saying

"This battery realm is so natural for us because there is right now in the United States no mass production of batteries, especially for vehicles, to speak of. That battery production is happening in Asia. So what we want to do is be the domestic place where batteries are produced." More here.

Being "the domestic place where batteries are produced" is a fine goal, but a far cry from the delusions of grandeur she pushed for Michigan in that Huffpost piece, which was a combination of jingoistic cheerleading, some fact, some fiction and a whole lotta hope.

Here are a few points to be made, in no particular order. (The only nanotech connection here is that it involves innovation and new technology in general)

1. The Obama Administration and Gov. Granholm have decided, for various reasons -- some pragmatic, some political, some ideological -- that government is going to build a whole lot of incentives for a li-ion battery infrastructure for electric vehicles ... one that Japan and Korea have already built. So, the U.S. is focusing very inward -- short term creation of business, jobs (nowhere near enough to replace the manufacturing jobs that have been lost) and a U.S. auto industry that "appears" to be remaking itself.

2. Companies like Sakti3 in Ann Arbor are living off of venture capital funding but are eager for government funding in order to survive. They will develop their technology in the direction government wants them to go. If Obama decided that stimulus money would go toward urine-powered engines, we'd have a whole lot of piss-fuel companies starting up and claiming they are the future of the auto industry.

3. Government is going whole-hog behind one technology because it is perceived to be closer to market. However, real innovation happens when you hedge bets and try different technologies. Corn growers learned that lesson the hard way, when they had no place to sell their crop after ethanol producers went back on their deals.

4. What does Toyota and VW know that the U.S. auto industry does not? History says they probably know a great deal. Both of them are pushing full-force into hydrogen fuel cell technology. Toyota, especially, has always viewed hybrid electric and electric vehicles as transition technologies on the way to fuel cells. In Japan, fuel cells for home use are gaining in popularity -- getting the public used to the idea.

5. To see how a state government can create incentives to speed development of technology, look at California, where its Zero Emission Vehicle mandate convinced Toyota to move up the release of its hydrogen fuel cell vehicle from 2015 to 2014. Remember, it was not too long ago that the former Big 3 were whining about California's strict emissions standards. Now, there's no whining anymore.

6. Bottom line is that Michigan lost its status as a center for automotive innovation a long time ago. So, look at the two traditional centers of innovation: Japan and California. Both are creating companies, coalitions and government incentives that lean toward an automotive future that views battery electric vehicles as a step along the way toward a completely new hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure. Granholm is correct in her determination to try to make Michigan a leader in "something," so, why not compete with Ohio and Indiana to become a leader in li-ion battery manufacturing -- a U.S. leader, still behind Japan and Korea? But does that make Michigan again an innovation leader? Absolutely not. The innovators are still tinkering away, with or without government incentive and funding.

7. Li-ion batteries may not represent the future of the auto industry, and hydrogen fuel cells may not, either. It could be that, someday, to "buy American" means to buy electric, while those interested in buying something truly innovative and less polluting will buy foreign. Sounds very much like status quo to me.

Again, these are raw notes, so please tell me where I am right and/or wrong. I won't cry about it ... much.

Backgrounder
Will batteries recharge Michigan’s economy?
Blogging for Center for Independent Media
U.S., at last, begins assault on batteries

More assault on batteries at Michigan Messenger

The Michigan Messenger has the latest in my coverage of the Detroit Auto Show.

The Messenger is part of a growing family of news sites ready to take over where major metro dailies are sadly lacking these days. It was launched by the nonprofit Center for Independent Media.

If you're not in Michigan, no problem. You can check out the center's publications in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, New Mexico and Washington.

In today's Messenger, I continue my obsession with battery technology, which -- as I have written before -- is directly related to nanotechnology.

Will batteries recharge Michigan’s economy?

They will if Congress -- and Detroit's critics -- come to understand that the auto industry is infrastructure.

DETROIT — A year ago, a confident Chrysler opened the North American International Auto Show with Dodge trucks herding cattle down Jefferson Avenue.

This year, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm came to Cobo on a mule.

A mule, of course, is Detroit-speak for a prototype automobile, and while Granholm’s ride boasted significantly less horsepower than last year’s methane-emitting stampede, the governor seemed at last on the right road after years of a visionless policy for Auto Industry 2.0. More here

Backgrounder
Blogging for Center for Independent Media
My 'respectable' blog launches at Small Times

U.S. battery makers finally find the 'on' switch

U.S. battery manufacturers have, at last, realized that working solely within their own closed, proprietary worlds will not help them catch up with the Asians, who are laps and laps ahead in the race to power next-generation electric and hybrid vehicles.

Somebody finally had the bright idea to form an industry consortium to move U.S. innovation along.

Recently, as battery consultant Ralph Brodd declared that the country "who makes the batteries will one day make the cars," 14 U.S. companies, including Altair Nanotechnologies, formed an alliance to speed the development and manufacture of li-ion batteries.

Hopefully, this group will do for batteries what SEMATECH did for the U.S. semiconductor industry.

And on the government side, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm proved she understood what was at stake when she said on Meet The Press a couple of weeks ago that lack of government funding would mean "replacing our reliance on foreign oil with the reliance on foreign batteries, because it's the battery that's going to be driving the electric vehicle in the future."

The Michigan Legislature followed up the governor's words by approving up to $335 million in tax credits to make the state a center of lithium-ion innovation and manufacturing.

Also recently, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) appeared at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, with the chairman of nanotech li-ion company Ener1 Inc. at his side, to propose $1.6 billion in federal grants to try to put U.S. battery makers in the passing lane.

It's still a race for second place, but at least the United States has reached the starting line.

Backgrounder
Innovation in Detroit ... yes, Detroit
Big Three Are Dead; Long Live The Little
Nano Powering The Auto Revolution

Innovation in Detroit ... yes, Detroit

Lost in all the sickening political posturing in Washington over the lives and livelihoods of millions of human beings is the fact that innovation is indeed occurring in my hometown of Detroit.

It's just not happening at the Big Three.

But it is at companies like A123, which Seeking Alpha recently reported may not have lost out after all to rival battery-maker LG Chem for the coveted contract for GM's new electric hybrid Volt. (I covered the unveiling of the prototype Volt two years ago.)

As I have written before, both companies have ties to Michigan and both are using nanotech to develop safe, long-lasting lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles.

Japanese companies like Toyota develop technologies like li-ion batteries largely in-house. While in the United States much of the real innovation occurs within smaller companies or groups until it's ready to be bought or gobbled by the big guys.

Motown's old automotive manufacturing and supplier jobs are gone. They won't come back. But automotive innovation, where nanotech plays a key role, is still happening in my poor, maligned, slandered and libeled, blighted, poverty-stricken, homeless, foreclosed and repo'd hometown of Detroit.

Backgrounder
Nano Powering The Auto Revolution
Big Three Are Dead; Long Live The Little

Big Three Are Dead; Long Live The Little

Commenting on my post, Nano Powering The Auto Revolution, Dexter Johnson at IEEE Spectrum writes:

The long-time nanotechnology blogger Howard Lovy at Nanobot presents some possibilities for how nanotechnology is fueling innovation in the auto industry. While it is good to have Mr. Lovy blogging again, and he is certainly someone who is uniquely qualified to write on both nanotechnology and the auto industry, I am hard pressed to extend his optimism for the automobile to the innovative sensibilities of Detroit automakers.

...

The problem is that the examples he cites in the article involve GE (while quite a large multi-national, it is not an automaker), A123Systems, and the all electric Tesla, the product of one man with a vision. All these companies are quite different than Detroit’s big three automakers. More here

First of all, thank you, Dexter. It's good to be back after taking five months off. You wouldn't believe the summer and autumn I've had.

I took time off for an experience that was eye-opening and life-changing. Even here in Michigan, in the heart of the Rust Belt, where we are being hit first and hit hardest by the worldwide economic slump, the poor just don't have a chance. They are cycled and recycled through a legal system where justice is for sale and only the rich, powerful and politically or legally connected come out unscathed. The problem is far worse, the system far more corrupt than I had ever previously imagined.

I will write much more about this in the future.

This is also related to the downfall of the auto industry that Dexter discusses. Here in Michigan, more and more of us are desperate ... and feel powerless and small. We see the captains of our formerly glorious automotive industry flying private jets to Washington so they can beg Congress for handouts.

The Big Three are dead, yet long live the auto industry. It's alive in the innovation coming not only from the small companies working on technologies like long-lasting, safe (and nanotech-based) lithium ion batteries for electric vehicles, but also divisions within the major auto companies and suppliers.

Toyota's doing it. Even General Motors is doing it.

But other companies, great and small, pick up where the major auto companies have failed miserably. I would argue, Dexter, that divisions within GE working on automotive technologies are, indeed, automakers. A123 Systems is an automaker. And that is true all the way down the supply chain to the companies and scientists supplying and developing the improved nanomaterials for catalysts and batteries.

If the auto industry were only the Big Three -- and not also the chain of innovation and manufacturing -- then my home state would not be in the horrible condition it is now (and even bottom-feeding writers like me would be able to find work).

Backgrounder
Nano powering the auto revolution
Who's driving the revolution?

Weeding out criminal catalysts

When A Good Nanoparticle Goes Bad: Well, now that's the story of my life. I AM that nanoparticle.

Actually, it's more about detecting which nanoscale gold particles are good catalysts and which suddenly go bad. Separating good from evil will help create better fuel cells or more efficient cars.

You can't start the energy revolution without a nanoscale spark. All it takes are a few good particles.

As for the bad ones ... throw away the key.

Backgrounder
From Wilkes-Barre to Wolfe
Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution
Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution: Part II

Nano Powering The Auto Revolution

Nanotech continues to be the driving force behind innovation in the auto industry, where the biggest challenge right now is providing those plug-in hybrids with enough long-lasting power to make them more than fancy golf carts.

GE recently made another investment in battery maker A123Systems, which "uses nanotechnology to produce rechargeable lithium-ion batteries with a combination of greater power density, lower weight, lower cost and improved safety than other battery types, based on materials licensed from MIT. Unlike standard lithium-ion batteries, A123's batteries are not prone to overheating."

I wrote a little on the advantages of nano-enabled Li-ion last year:

Current NiMH technology - the one powering the Toyota Prius, for example - is guaranteed to keep a car running for seven or eight years, he says. The next generation will go as long as a decade. But automakers are asking for 15-year battery life, and NiMH can't do that. Li-ion, once perfected, will.

Plus, Li-ion will do it cheaply once production is ramped up, since the material is not as price sensitive as nickel. And Li-ion is two to three times lighter than NiMH. More here

Technology Review gives us a little more on A123 and its competitors and partners:

A123 uses a new lithium-ion chemistry that allows its batteries to be much lighter and more compact than the nickel metal hydride batteries in existing hybrids today, and safer than the conventional lithium ion batteries found in consumer electronics. In June GM announced that it is working with the South Korean company LG Chem, and its subsidiary Compact Power, based in Troy, MI, to make both battery packs and the individual cells inside them. They also signed an agreement with an LG Chem competitor, the Frankfurt, Germany-based Continental Automotive Systems, to develop battery packs. Continental had planned to use A123 as a subcontractor to supply the batteries for these packs. The new agreement puts A123 in direct contact with GM on the Volt project. More here

I covered the unveiling of the Volt concept vehicle at the North American International Auto Show a couple of years ago (PDF 219k) and interviewed the creator of the all-electric Tesla (PDF 197k).

The story of battery development appeals to me because it hits on the two primary topics I've been reporting on these past few years: nanotech and the auto industry.

Related Patent
Nanoscale Ion Storage Materials

Backgrounder
March goes out like a Li-Ion
Who's driving the revolution?

Biden our time for cleantech

Longtime nanotech venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson poses with Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Joe Biden. Jurvetson writes:

When I mentioned that we are one of the most active energy and cleantech VC investors, Joe Biden quickly replied: "Well, then you are going to love what we are going to do." More here

As we know, nanotech is the primary technology that makes cleantech possible, so anybody who is interested in how nanotech develops should pay close attention to what the new administration is "going to do" if the Democrats win.

The U.S. government's push for nanotech funding began with Clinton and continued under Bush, so this should remain nonpartisan. And, of course, thank goodness for folks like Jurvetson, who uses his wealth to push mankind forward -- regardless of who's in power.

Backgrounder
Who's driving the revolution?
The business of imagination
Cleantech's the new nano; nano's the new dot-bomb

mPhase takes its power to the people

During my short, less-than-meritorious career as a nanotech pitchman over the course of the last couple of years, here's one recurring theme I tried to get across to employers and clients: Public relations is no longer only a matter of begging major publications to write about your company. RSS and cheap distribution of videos like the one above are the great equalizers.

Companies can produce messages themselves, bypass traditional media and take their message directly to their audience. That is exactly what mPhase has done here with a video about its nanobattery, and in this one released a week later on its magnetometer.

I had no takers on my proposals, along with other strategies that made use of "bottom-up" citizen-enabled media -- largely because most of the companies I worked with, in the end, were just not ready to take the next step. mPhase took a chance and, with 13,312 views so far, and the discussion continuing on YouTube and other sites, this no-brainer concept is more than proven. You just can't get better PR for the price. I'm glad at least one nanotech company finally "gets it."

Backgrounder
My other life as a nanotech pitchman
March goes out like a Li-Ion

Cramer not mad about Headwaters

CNBC's Jim Cramer is "in a flummox," so the "Mad Money" magnate turned to Headwaters Inc. CEO Kirk Bensen for some unflummoxing. Headwaters does many things, among them is a better (nano) way of making catalysts that cuts down on waste and makes coal-to-gas technology more efficient. (I explained the technology in more detail here.)

"What the heck are all these alternative energy companies doing at a 52-week low?," asks Cramer in this video clip. A comparatively mild-mannered Bensen gave an honest answer that just did not satisfy "C."

So, the verdict: "Don't buy, Don't buy." "Damn that's tough," Cramer says. "I wanted that one to be a good one."

Backgrounder
Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution
Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution: Part II
Headwaters Inc. makes nano waves

Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution: Part II

Philippines energy consultant Nick Nichols reports that Headwaters Technology Innovation Group (the subsidiary where energy firm Headwaters Inc. hides all its nanotech geeks), is close to finalizing a deal to build a large coal-to-gas plant in the Philippines.

Close NanoBot followers might remember that I had correctly picked out Headwaters as a possible company for this deal back when the potential American partner was a state secret. I hadn't noticed that a few months after my 2004 blog post, the company signed a memorandum of understanding in a ceremony attended by the Philippines president and energy secretary. Headwaters handed in its feasibility study in September 2005.

Great, but where's the nano? As I reported in the Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report back in '04, quoting Bruce Springsteen: "You can’t start a fire without a spark." And you can’t change chemistry without a catalyst.

Most catalysts in commercial use today use a metal to set off the reaction – primarily in the platinum group. These metals are used because they’re the most active and can be selectively controlled. But, as any shopper at Tiffany’s can testify, platinum isn’t exactly cheap. Plus, just nano-sizing the stuff isn’t enough.

Tinier particles tend to be more active and want to interact with one another – migrating all over the place and then clumping together, essentially losing this high-surface-area advantage. Not only that, but some surface areas of a catalyst are more-active than others, so another trick is to ensure that the right kind of crystal surface is exposed.

Headwaters has come up with a better way of making catalysts so that particles stay uniform and separated. These nanocatalysts can be used for coal liquefaction in addition to hydrogen peroxide, which goes into polyurethane foam. Other applications include pharmaceuticals, electronics, and titanium dioxide used in sunscreens – anything where you need small particles dispersed uniformly. And a key advantage of Headwaters' process is few byproducts and less waste -- getting closer to truly "green" chemistry.

However, as I pointed out in December 2004, while it's wonderful that the Philippines are going to benefit from decades of U.S. spending on coal liquefaction research, when is the United States going to benefit?

Backgrounder
From Wilkes-Barre to Wolfe
Philippines to launch NanoPower Revolution
Headwaters Inc. makes nano waves

March goes out like a Li-Ion

Toshiba preps minute-charge 'miracle' battery (The Register)

Toshiba has developed a Lithium-Ion battery capable of being charged to 80 per cent of its full capacity in under 60 seconds. Filling it up takes just "a few more minutes", the company boasted today.

Toshiba 'one-minute charge' Li-ion batteryThat's considerably faster than today's Li-ion rechargeables which can take 1-4 hours to reach 80 per cent capacity, and even longer to fill completely.

Toshiba also claimed the new cell offers a greater longevity than today's Li-ion batteries, losing only one per cent of its capacity after 1000 charge cycles, according to the results of its own charge-discharge testing.

... The company lauded the new battery's eco-credentials. With such a fast recharge time, it consumes less energy than today's Li-ion cells, leading to reduced carbon-dioxide emissions, Toshiba claimed.

The secret is the use of "nano-particles" to "prevent organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging. The nano-particles quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions, without causing any deterioration in the electrode". More here

NanoBot Backgrounder
Albany to feast on nanochips
Nokia watches kudos for Konarka
U.S. to China: Let's share power
Nanomix senses a product in 2005

'Strongs to the finichk'

We're talking real 'green' energy
MIT researchers join in project to harness photosynthetic power of spinach in field of electronics (Boston Globe)

Scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have proved what Popeye already knew -- spinach is an excellent energy source. It's so good that in 10 years, our cellphones and portable computers may be coated in a spinach-based material that provides their electrical power.

"The phone is no longer red or blue; it becomes green. So what?" said Shuguang Zhang, associate director of MIT's Center for Biomedical Engineering. In exchange for the color makeover, users would have electrical devices that would recharge themselves from sunlight, using a process similar to the photosynthesis that keeps all green plants alive.

Zhang, assistant computer science professor Marc Baldo, and recent MIT graduate Patrick Kiley helped develop the technology, dubbed Photosystem 1. The MIT team joined forces with scientists at the University of Tennessee and the US Naval Research Laboratory. They isolated a set of spinach proteins that produce energy when exposed to light. The proteins form clusters no more than 20 nanometers in size, meaning that 100,000 would fit on the head of a pin. More here

Related News
MIT Works to Power Computers With Spinach (Associated Press)

NanoBot Backgrounder
Buying Power
From Wilkes-Barre to Wolfe
Converging on clean energy

Buying Power

DOE's Basic Research Gets a Boost(TechNewsWorld)

In a year when nearly every government program not tied to national security Relevant Products/Services from IBM eServer xSeries Systems is facing budget cuts, the House Appropriations Committee decided to add money to the Department of Energy's budget to boost the nation's investment in basic research. ... Among other "plus ups," Congress added $13 million for nanoscience research and another $13 million-plus for DOE's various laboratories. The labs are a national resource used by agency scientists and non-agency researchers from universities and many other institutions. More here

NanoBot Backgrounder
From Wilkes-Barre to Wolfe
Cut NSF, but grow nano
Converging on clean energy
DoE, EPA in MOU
Spending power

From Wilkes-Barre to Wolfe

In Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on the banks of the Susquehanna River, which once flowed into the lucrative anthracite mines of Northeastern Pennsylvania, there’s a wildly popular polka band that calls itself Stanky and the Coal Miners.

And although anthracite coal was first used in a Wilkes-Barre blacksmith’s shop in 1769, these days if it weren’t for Stanky and his 1-2-3 polka beat conjuring up the sounds of a past steeped in black lung and soot, you’d no longer hear any coal-mining-era reminders in town at all. Wilkes-Barre was born in coal, boomed with coal, and then slid into economic slump with the environmental degradation wrought by coal.

But, if you pay close attention and look around town, you’ll see something new rising from the dust.

In September 2003, it was a 330-ton liquid natural gas heat exchanger that began life in the Wilkes-Barre factory of Air Products and Chemicals Inc., then journeyed to Nigeria, where it will help capture and liquefy natural gas.

Three-hundred-thirty tons? And you thought this was a nanotechnology blog? It is. But to truly explain why nano matters, you have to first see the big picture.

The developing world is doing just that – developing. And as economies grow, so do their demands for energy and their ability to export it to other countries. When it comes to gas-rich countries like Nigeria, enabling conversion of gas to liquid fuel serves as a catalyst for economic development in Africa and, eventually, could lead to less U.S. dependence on oil imports from the Middle East. And the gas-to-liquids market is $100 billion a year, and still evolving.

Did you get that word? Catalyst? Remember it. We’re almost down to the nano scale, but not quite.

Bottling that gas and piping it around the world costs a great deal of money, so companies are pumping an awful lot of R&D cash into making that process cheaper. The potential rewards are great, since the flow of liquid natural gas (LNG) is expected to quadruple from 2001 to 2020. Now is a good time to plant that LNG stake in the ground. Air Products has decided that it wants to be there – hence the Wilkes-Barre/Nigeria connection. But the company also needs to make the process cheaper and more efficient. The way to do that is by discovering more precise ways of making the chemistry happen.

Now, finally, here we are, from a 330-ton hunk of metal, to molecules. You want to set the world alight with your energy solution? Well, like The Boss says, “You can’t start a fire without a spark.” And you can’t change chemistry without a catalyst.

And, boy, have I ever learned about catalysts. I did a great deal of research on them as a contributing editor to the latest edition of the Forbes/Wolfe Nanotech Report. Despite having worked with me through this August issue, Josh Wolfe and company apparently haven't learned their lesson and have given me some work for the September edition.

When I learned of coal-to-oil technology, it sent me back to the wastelands of Wilkes-Barre, where I was assistant news editor at the Times-Leader for the longest 10 months of my life back in the early '90s.

In 1997, Air Products worked with the U.S. Department of Energy in a Tennessee pilot plant that turned coal into methanol – technology that will likely see commercial light in China. The good folks of Wilkes-Barre might want to take a look at the connection between their hometown company’s innovative technologies being deployed in the Far and Middle East, and their own lost coal heritage.

But, then again, perhaps the connections have been made already. According to the Oct. 25, 2000 Congressional Record, Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Pa., rose to pay tribute to John “Stanky” Stankovic, “who has been entertaining people of all ages with his polka magic for 55 years.”

Stanky, the hometown congressman continued, “learned to play the accordion from his father, Joe Stankovic, a Czech immigrant who came to America at age sixteen and went straight to work in the coal mines. When Stanky was a young man, he was more interested in being a professional baseball player. However, his father wisely made sure he practiced his music one hour a day before going out to play, and audiences around the world have benefited from Stanky's ultimate career choice. For example, in 1988, Stanky and the Coal Miners played to a crowd of a million people in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, China.”

Perhaps all it takes to spark a revolution is a lump of coal, a nanocatalyst and 1-2-3- polka beat.

The Springfield Syndrome

A friend told me last weekend that they will probably find a Homer Simpson asleep at the job at a power plant somewhere in Ohio, and blame him for bringing eight states to their knees. We laughed at the time, but as I learn more about the way the power grid operates, my conviction turns stronger that "The Simpsons" is more documentary than comedy.

A reporter for a tech magazine and Web site (I'll link to it after it appears) called me yesterday, asking me to elaborate on my previousposts about how small tech could help prevent future massive blackouts. I said that microscale technology being tested now, and nanotechnology being proposed, will make up for three key deficits in the current system: Brains, brawn and local control.

New Scientist recently ran an informative piece that re-created the likely sequence of events and also explained where those three elements probably failed last week:

Brains: The reporter I talked to yesterday was as surprised as I was to learn how much the system is dependent on human beings just paying attention on the job. "There are no automatic systems to handle major disturbances," power systems security expert Daniel Kirschen told the New Scientist. "It is done manually by human operators, so the question is did they try to take the necessary action to avoid the outage." The solution? Take humans out of the equation as much as possible. Micron-scale acoustic sensors can listen for trouble on the grid, and then rouse Homer from his doughnut reverie to alert him, or simply take matters into its own tiny hands and shut down the system before the dominoes tumble out of control.

Brawn: "The power network was heavily loaded across the region that day because of high demand, and so there was no room to divert the power supply safely elsewhere," New Scientist reported. That's where Rick Smalley's quantum wires can come in. The nanotube fibers conduct electricity like copper, but are far lighter, so the grid's muscle power can increase in the same amount of space.

Local control: An often-repeated nanotech campaign promise is the micro fuel cell in every garage, powering your car, your house, your life. Then, when your power supply is finished thinking locally, there will be enough juice left over to act globally and sending the excess energy into other networks that need it.

All this, in a tiny microchip wafer. Mmmmmm … microchip waaafferrrs …

Discuss

Smalley's smart eye for a dumb supply

If you don't believe me, listen to Richard Smalley, himself. The buckyball baron co-wrote a Houston Chronicle op-ed yesterday about nanotech and energy. The piece is tight combination of Texas flag-waving, nanotech boosterism and a dash of homeland security:

Seeing the nano-light: "Nanotechnologies also offer the possibility for vast new electrical energy storage capacity that must be tested and connected into the smart grid."

Fear Factor: "But as we saw from the Great Blackout of the Northeast, those inside an island under attack, including all city and state agencies and utilities, are currently on their own for early response."

Remembering the Alamo: "Texas then becomes the first to test nano and other advanced technologies related to transmission wires, environmental remediation, new generation technologies and other developments we can't even imagine now related to the smart grid of the future."

In today's Small Times, Smalley elaborates on how he'd use quantum wires to make the dumb grid a bit smarter and better able to harvest solar energy.

If the troubled summer at Ohio's FirstEnergy is any gauge of the power industry as a whole, it sounds like a smarter automated system might have made up for some pretty dumb human errors.

Discuss

Nano knowledge is power

"I will get right to the point. Energy is the single most important problem facing humanity today." - Nanotechnology pioneer Rick Smalley, speaking to the U.S. Congress on July 25, 2002

The day the lights went out in Ann Arbor, I grabbed my laptop, thanked fate that I had recently filled my tank, fought horrible traffic home (one 'burb outside Detroit), got to know my neighbors a little better and played Scrabble by candlelight with my wife. On Friday, still no power and water, so we stuffed the dog and our belongings into the car, and headed north to my inlaws' home off the northern shores of Lake Michigan, a rustic area that was, ironically enough, completely unaffected by the sudden loss of power. While enjoying the three-day weekend on the beach, I cursed myself for not running a Small Times correspondent's report, filed last week, on nanotech and electricity.

Well, we can't all be visionaries like Rick Smalley, as you can see from the quotation that began this entry. Smalley has been reciting the energy mantra for more than a year now, and solving power problems is at the core of his call for an Apollo Program for nanotech. He and others are pushing for a federal commitment of billions of dollars to develop nanotech energy applications. When Smalley speaks, people generally listen, but now Smalley's visions seem nothing less than prophetic. Legislators will want to review what he and others have proposed, including harnessing energy from the sun and the Earth's core and developing smart distributed energy networks.

Lux Capital co-founder and fellow nanotech blogger Josh Wolfe has also given Smalley his props for his solution to energy distribution problems: Superconductive "quantum wire" spun from a carbon nanotube "could quickly move extra power from places that have it to those who need it."

Another source that should be consulted is Robert L. Olson, research director of the Institute for Alternative Futures, a nonprofit research group. In a recently published article in The Futurist, Olsen writes: "Fuel cells and other micro-power sources, collectively called distributed generation, will likely emerge as the most economical approach to providing new electrical generating capacity. Micropower on site or feeding a local grid eliminates the cost of distributing power, and in large utility grids most of the cost is actually in transmitting the power rather than in generating it. On-site and local-scale power eliminates grid losses and makes it possible to harness waste heat for heating and cooling."

One reason Olsen is a big believer in hydrogen: It's clean. "The only emission from fuel cells running on hydrogen is pure water." Acknowledging concerns over just how clean hydrogen really is, Olsen writes that it all depends on how it's produced. If you produce hydrogen using fossil fuel energy, then you're still producing greenhouse gases. "The priority our society gives to minimizing climate change will be a major factor determining what kind of hydrogen economy we create," Olsen writes.

I've made a similar argument for nanotech. The technology, itself, is morally and ethically neutral. It's up to an informed, voting public to decide whether to delve into the dark side.

If you're hungry for even more nanoenergy knowledge, look at Small Times' previous coverage of the California crisis, and an excellent overview in a Small Times cover story written by David Pescovitz.

Too bad that it takes a crisis like this to get legislators and citizens to pay attention to the fragility of our power grid, but maybe now they'll see what the nanotech visionaries have seen for years and finally take action.

Discuss