Green Technology Forum

Last night I took part in a session on the Indy GreenPrint initiative in Indianapolis. I learned a lot about city government, how far we have to go in energy efficiency and conservation, and how eager many citizens and administrators are to get there.

For example, Tim Method, Environmental Coordinator for Indy’s Department of Public works, explained that half of the city’s energy expenditures are for sewage treatment. And when we get a good rain, which happens about fifty times a year, raw sewage overflows into our creeks and rivers. Fortunately, the city plans to spend almost $2 billion over the next twenty years to fix that problem.

But what can emerging technologies like nanotechnology and biotechnology do to help green our cities? Nanotechnology is advancing water treatment significantly, and one Australian city is even using methane from wastewater to power a treatment plant. Advances in nano-solar cell technology could also enhance programs like Indianapolis Power and Light’s Green Power Option, which allows customers to specify an amount up to 100 percent of their monthly electricity to be generated by environmentally friendly, renewable resources.

I’m looking forward to helping make Indy GreenPrints a reality and introducing environmentally friendly and energy-saving nanotechnologies and biotechnologies where appropriate.

The introduction of nanotechnology and biotechnology into our lives is one of the most challenging undertakings we will face in our lifetime. The benefits, both proven and potential, are great. Human testing is now underway on nanomedicines that have proven one hundred percent effective in fighting certain cancers in rats. Genetically modified goats produce milk containing drugs that can treat diseases as severe as anthrax. But with these modern miracles come grave concerns about the consequences of new technologies. What is life like for genetically modified animals? Should we modify living things to suit our own desires? How will nanoparticles affect our bodies?

Much of the fear that some people have of nanotechnology and biotechnology stems from the fact that there are no quick easy answers to these questions. These are some of the most complex technologies we have ever employed, and their outcomes and interactions are often impossible to predict. Nanotechnology is the manipulation of matter at the molecular scale, a level of nature at which quantum phenomena take charge over the Newtonian phenomena we experience at the macro level. Our conventional thinking about materials and effects don’t even work at this level.

Biotechnology can be equally perplexing, as we design and construct living things using DNA, the most fundamental building block of life, as a sculptor uses clay. How can we predict the consequences of something as complex as a new life form?

But if our conventional thinking about new materials and their effects falters faced with the complexity of nanotechnology and biotechnology, what alternative do we have for guiding or even grasping their outcomes? First, regardless of complexity, the use of any technology should be guided by principles. What do we want and why do we want it? Who benefits as a result of its use? What is its effect on the environment? Defining what we want gives us a yardstick by which to measure the success or failure of specific applications of new technologies.

However, once we have defined the what, why, and for whom, we need to bring a new level of open-mindedness to the question of how. In other words, our thinking about how to apply nanotechnology and biotechnology should not follow the patterns of past technological applications. These complex new technologies behave in new ways and raise new questions. Nanoparticles behave differently in the body and the environment than their macroscale counterparts. Genetically modified organisms occupy a strange new territory between living and non-living things.

Often I’ve found it helpful when faced with complexity and uncertainty to focus on relationships rather than entities. For example, looking past the novelty of the gold nanospehers used to treat cancer to consider their interaction with human tissue. Or looking past the mammalian clone whose mother is also its sister to ask what effects their relationship has on their quality of life.

Focusing on qualities and relationships may help us find our way through the new territory opened by nanotechnology and biotechnology better than past frameworks focusing on quantities and entities could. But thinking in this way often clashes with conventional thinking, and with the methods and mindset of many scientists. It is important, however, not only in guiding the outcomes of new technologies, but also in guiding initial experimental work. One of the greatest differences between nano/bio and earlier technologies is that they are design disciplines. Nanotechnology is the design of materials at the molecular level and biotechnology is the design of living things. This makes designers out of nanoscientists and biotechnologists and demands a new way of thinking about these sciences.

Artists are trained and perhaps innately adept at focusing on qualities and relationships. They’re inclined to ask, “What effect am I trying to achieve and why is it important,” before asking “How can I achieve it?” Scientists have been trained more to work from the bottom up, examining materials and aspects of nature to find their applications in society. Artists have learned much from scientists to aid in their pursuit of qualities and relationships. Perhaps with the advent of nanotechnology and biotechnology it is time for all of us to adopt their focus on qualities and relationships and think in new ways about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead.

“Are you spontaneously enthusiastic about everyone having everything you can have?” That’s the question posed by R. Buckminster Fuller in Critical Path. Like most people, I would answer with a hearty “yes”. But like most “haves”, I get a little nervous if it looks like providing for others is going to cost me some of my comforts. When that happens, I remind myself that more for today’s “have-nots” doesn’t have to mean less for me.

Rather than taking from the haves and giving to the have-nots, we can achieve equality by making more efficient use of the resources we already have. Our earth and sun provide us with all the resources we need for all of us to live well, if only we are willing and able to steward them properly.

As Fuller observed, “. . . humanity now—for the first time in history—has the realistic opportunity to help evolution do what it is inexorably intent on doing—converting all humanity into one harmonious world family and making that family sustainingly, economically successful.”

I often wonder if nanotechnology and biotechnology could be the keys that open a new world so rich in wisely utilized resources that we can all live well. And apparently, I’m not alone. The week of June 11, 2007, thirteen of the world’s leading scientists gathered in Ilulissat, Greenland for the Kavli Futures Symposium, “The Merging of Bio and Nano: Towards Cyborg Cells.” They felt so strongly that nano and bio will have such a profound effect on humanity that they issued a statement unanimously stating their position in The Ilulissat Statement, “Synthesizing the Future: a Vision for the Convergence of Synthetic Biology and Nanotechnology.” Among their conclusions:

“The construction of arbitrary genetic sequences comparable to the genome size of simple organisms is now possible. Turning these artificial genomes into functioning single-cell factories is probably only a matter of time. On the hardware side of synthetic biology, the train is leaving the station. All we need to do is stoke the engine (by supporting foundational research in synthetic biology technology) and tell the train where to go.”

So, all we need to do is tell the nano-bio train where to go! They make it sound so easy! But many people believe that the tracks these technologies must follow have already been laid, their direction already determined by political or corporate interests.

Bucky Fuller was not one of these people. He believed the critical path technology and humanity will follow will be determined, not by politicians or corporations, but by individuals working together to create a critical mass powerful enough to direct and, as necessary, redirect the train. The discipline required to steer it? Not political or financial clout, but “the design science revolution.”

In other words, technology itself isn’t enough. It must be guided by design principles. The Ilulissat Statement is very much in harmony with ecological design principles, as are Fuller’s principles. That’s the vision of Green Technology Forum as well, to encourage the use of ecological design principles in the application of nanotechnology and biotechnology. It’s a strategy that can benefit business and consumers, and can help us build the kind of world envisioned by luminaries like Fuller and the Ilulissat group.

“As a student and fan of this great country, America, and the ideas at the heart of it, I think the wider world needs to see a demonstration of those ‘American’ values, through pharmacology, agro-ecology, and technological help for those in extreme circumstances, in their hour of need.”

Bono, “Message 2U: Guest Editor’s Letter,” Vanity Fair, July 2007

What would a demonstration of American values through technological help to those in need look like? If those in need live in Africa, where Bono focuses his attention, people need help meeting their most basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. There, affordability is everything. People there don’t starve because there’s no food, they starve because they just can’t afford it.

But can we put new, powerful technologies like nanotechnology and biotechnology to work feeding people when technological development is largely driven by the quest for profit? The 206 million people who are hungry right now in sub-Saharan Africa certainly hope we can answer yes.

At Green Technology Forum we’re currently working with one of the world’s largest companies to spread new nanotechnologies that could literally save hundreds of thousands of lives. And we’re not alone. Innovative companies around the world are coming up with green nanotechnologies and biotechnologies that can make food, clothing and shelter more affordable while at the same time making a living for those who produce and sell them. But not all nano and biotech advances are intended to benefit humanity.

At Green Technology Forum the test we employ in evaluating the social justice of a new technology is simple:

“Who does it benefit?”

“How does it benefit them?”

If a technology benefits more than just an elite few, and does so in a way that does not harm others and has minimal environmental impact, we’ll pursue it. We also donate a minimum of 5 percent of our gross income to organizations dedicated to social and environmental causes.

“From here, what’s needed is a leg up, not a handout,” says Bono. Nanotechnology and biotechnology could be the answer, if we ask the right questions.

Last week I took part in the World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing, a powerhouse event in Orlando, Florida, that brought together industry leaders, venture capitalists, and academics for an intensive discussion of current and future trends in industrial biotech.

Biofuels were of course the hot topic, and experts were enthusiastic about future developments in that area. Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures speculated that cellulosic biofuel could be cost-competitive with corn by 2009. Dr. Jens Riese of McKinsey & Co., who shared the podium with Khosla during a plenary lunch, said he expects we won’t see that until about 2012, depending on the cost and availability of feedstocks. Reise also observed that it’s farmland economics and fuel security that are the big biofuel drivers in US, whereas in Europe it’s the environment.

Among the many insights into biotech venture spending was Andrey Zarur of Kodiak Venture Partners, spelling out exactly what venture capitalists are currently looking for in biotech:

Small-scale wind power

Point production of energy (distribution costs of centralized energy are too high)

Energy storage

Insulation

Auxiliary systems that integrate any of these

For the first time, plants containing human genes will be grown in the US. Last week the Agriculture Department gave preliminary approval for Ventria Bioscience to conduct large-scale cultivation in Kansas of rice that produces human immune system proteins.

The proteins — lactoferrin and lysozyme — are bacteria-fighting compounds found in breast milk and saliva that fight diarrhea. Producing them in plants makes the treatment more affordable for children in the developing world, where the disease kills 2 million children each year, Ventria officials said.

And who can argue with helping poor, sick kids get well?

Ventria seems to be following a common pattern in biotech history where companies introduce controversial technologies to aid sick children, then work their way into the real money-making later. It’s an effective way to curtail initial opposition to controversial technologies like adding human genes into plants. After all, who wants to be seen as opposing aid to sick children?

Do biotech executives really think the public will believe they’re in it for the children? Apparently so:

“We can really help children with diarrhea get better faster,” says Scott E. Deeter, Ventria’s president and chief executive. “That is the idea.”

And while the sick kid strategy may fool some people, it isn’t fooling agriculture giant Anheuser-Busch — the nation’s largest rice buyer. When Ventria initially proposed to grow their gene-altered rice in Missouri, the beer maker threatened to stop buying rice from the state if the deal went through.

Listen as former congressman James Greenwood, President and CEO of the Biotechnology Industry Organization, which represents over one thousand biotechnology companies and related organizations, talks about what it takes to bring today’s biotech breakthroughs to market, and how they are leading the move toward clean energy.

 

 James Greenwood interview: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

The U.S. could lose its competitive edge in stem cell research, according to an article in today’s Washington Post. Not long ago, it was Europe leading the biotech revolution, but they lost their predominance in part because they resisted the patenting of living things while the U.S. allowed it. Who can blame them for taking their time in making as difficult a decision as whether or not to allow that, and yet the result was that the U.S. controls 75% of world biotech sales, whereas less than 30 years ago, five of the world’s top 10 pharmaceutical companies, including the two largest, were European.

Now the U.S. faces a similar dilemma over stem cell research. “The ongoing political debate over the appropriate use of embryonic stem cells and the low level of government support have denied stem cell research the catalyst provided to biotechnology,” say the article’s authors. So it seems we can skip the debate and accept the ethical implications of stem cell research, which are not to be taken lightly, or we can debate too long and watch the $60 billion per year world biotechnology market pass us by. Hopefully there’s some middle ground to be found that allows us to proceed responsibly.

As I discussed in a recent post at nanotechbuzz on Brian Eno’s talk, Before and After Darwin, nanotechnology can sometimes lead to insights into how nature works. Those lessons can then be applied to the design of new materials. Let’s look at a work in progress where scientists looking at nature at the nanoscale have made some discoveries that could transform whole industries.

Researchers from Northwestern University and the University of California, Santa Barbara have found an optimized adhesive contained in bone, abalone shells and spider silk that could be used in “glues” for nanocomposite materials such as carbon nanotubes and graphene sheets.

Researcher Paul Hansma said these optimized adhesives hold strong elements of materials together and yield just prior to the elements’ breaking points so as to prevent the entire structure from breaking. “Abalone shell and bone can heal themselves due to the weak bonds, such as hydrogen bonds or ionic bonds, that can reform,” he explained to PhysOrg.com.

In a paper published in the journal Nanotechnology, the research team draws these conclusions:

1. Nature is frugal with resources: it uses just a few per cent glue, by weight, to glue together composite materials.

2. Nature does not avoid voids.

3. Nature makes optimized glues with sacrificial bonds and hidden length.

Their observations of nature open the door to new insights into artificial glues and the promise of stronger, lighter, more efficient and economical adhesives. Thanks nature, for providing a valuable lesson, and thanks Dr. Hansma and company for unearthing it.

It couldn’t have been done without the nanotech tools to observe nature at the nanoscale, and I’m always delighted when I see scientists using these new tools to unlock nature’s secrets and show the way to new materials and products.

I hope the developers of new nano-based products will keep nature in mind and that we’ll see, for example, the discoveries described here lead to a new class of adhesives that far exceed current ones like urea formaldehyde, which is classified as a probable human carcinogen by the EPA.

I am looking fifty years down the road, and I don’t like what I see. Genetic engineering has enabled us not only to reengineer ourselves, but our children and our children’s children. Farm animals are designed for maximum efficiency and profit, living creatures turned product. Our foods are altered—even the trees have been bioengineered to fit our needs. As we walk the city streets, merchandise screams at us through brain implants that link us to an internet on steroids, leaving us barely present, lost in a sea of information and artificial stimulus. Almost everything we see, hear and touch has been engineered in some way for human convenience.

Looking back from this future vantage point, I ask myself what went wrong. How did we come to live in a world where we can no longer tell the real from the artificial? Why did we choose to redesign almost everything that nature gave us, and what led us to believe the results would be better?

I can point to a time when it began, when we still had a choice—to restrain our newfound power that biotechnology, nanotechnology and information technology gave us at the start of the twenty-first century; a time when the awesome power of these new technologies went to our heads, and we forged ahead unchecked, intoxicated with the power to create, to redesign according to our own needs the world around us that for so long we had accepted and adapted to.

Now the tables have turned, and instead of adapting to nature—running for shelter from the storm, silently enduring famine and disease—we command nature to adapt to us. Ours is the hand that guides evolution, if evolution still exists. Everything shows traces of the human touch. Nature has ceased to exist.

Turning back the clock to the start of the twenty-first century, I find myself at an intersection. Three roads lie ahead. One, just described, is paved with unchecked ambition and the overconfidence that we can design better than nature. I believe that if we choose this path we will not even recognize ourselves or the world we’ve made when we reach its end. Another road turns back, rejecting any technological advance. It is paved with fear. This road is also a dead end.

Between these two roads lies a third. Along this road, technology is applied according to ecological principles—neither rejected out of hand nor embraced uncritically. This blog is about this middle path—where it leads and how to get there. It is a roadmap for working with nature according to ecological principles, accepting the power of new technologies like biotechnology and nanotechnology but continuously evaluating them to ensure their responsible use.