Nanotechnology, GM Crops, Genetic Engineering and Peak Oil

Along with research into renewable and green energy systems to deal with Peak Oil
the Bank of Britain that is required as part of the economic transition process also needs to invest in research programmes on Nanotechonology and genetic engineering.

Nanotechnology may allow us to escape the Peak Oil nightmare, though itself may open up an even greater nightmare if the technology is created by a nation that would seek to use it for military means.

Along with Peak Oil we also face endless Eco-Conflicts based on the competition for ever diminshing natural resources such as metals and other resorces essential to industry and social stability.

If we have created in the UK an 100 % independent renewable energy system and also cracked the nanotechnology problems, we can create all the resources we require using nanotechnology.

We would then be capable of being a 100 % independent nation with no need to seek any incoming resources in any way as we would be able to use molecular engieering to create those resources we need or to exploit them in such a way as to maximise their efficiency to such a level that we require much less levels of those resources for our use.

Engineering at the molecular level would allow us to create whole new industries and engineering systems that would allow us to exploit the oceans around our shores and turn these into factories for food, energy and resources. We could unlock the resources in the ocean depths and transform our society.

At the same time the science of genetic engineering will allow us to embrace the ideal of Creative Self Evolution, and allow us to cure humanity of all inherited genetic defects, most diseases and extend our lifespans.

The present level of human evolution would be superseded by a new level of Higher Humanity.

We stand at the brink of a new technologicl era, a time where Man can evolve himself upwards towards a higher form - or we face a future where we will plunge into an abyss of wars, eco-conflicts and chaos where we will revert back to the level of the animals and live in a world where war and violence rules.

I am against the use of GM crops being used and controlled by private corporations simply because the aim of these corporations is simply to make profit at the expense of Nature, the Folk and the Nation.

What we require is for research and development of GM foods, genetic engineering and nanotechnology to be taken out of the hands of the corporations and placed in the hands of a government controlled body whose interests are Nationalist, Folkish and Environmentalist.

This of course also requires a government to be in power that regards the interests of the Nation, Folk and National Environment as of the paramount importance.

An Academy of Life Sciences should be established that is responsible for research and development of these technologies in a way that makes them accountable to government and that protects the interests of our people and national environment.

These three new technologies of Genetic Engineering, GM crops and nanotechnology could transform Britain and our peoples lives.

We could grow enough of our own food with GM crops to ensure we need never rely on foreign imports again, we could create new pharmacutical industries and cure diseases and expand human life spans and we could ensure we never have to be dependent upon other nations agains for our internal resource demands.

If we survive the Peak Oil nightmare and put in place the structures neccasery to allow us to survive the Peak Oil crash, then in conjunction with these new technologies we could stand at the brink of a New Britain, a nation where the possibilities of progress are wide open.

If we fail then the world will descend into chaos and our descendants left to fend for themselves in a world where war will be the currency of all human interactions forever.




Published on 19 May 2003 by Nano News. Archived on 19 May 2003.

Nanotech Key To Future Energy Solutions, Nobelist Says
by Richard Mullen

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A global-scale energy crisis looms ahead, according to Nobel laureate Richard E. Smalley, who said that nanotechnology will figure centrally in providing technological solutions.

"Energy is the single most important problem facing humanity today—not just the U.S., but worldwide," Smalley said at a nanotechnology conference in Washington April 3. "The magnitude of this problem is incredible."

Presently the world consumes 14 terawatts of power per day, the equivalent of 210 million barrels of oil, said Smalley, a professor at Rice University in Houston.

"By the middle of this century, assuming there is no apocalyptic event" that drastically curtails energy usage, he said, global demand by an estimated 8 billion people will at least double today's total and possibly will reach 60 terawatts per day.

And "it can't be fossil energy," Smalley said, noting that oil production "will peak worldwide" sometime in this decade and then settle into a steady decline—taking our economy with it if we remain dependent on oil for energy, he said.
Unhappy century?

"Energy is hands-down the biggest enterprise on the planet," Smalley said, by way of placing its importance in perspective: at $3 trillion a year globally, energy constitutes "the largest industry in the world," versus only $1.3 trillion for agriculture and $700 billion for all defense spending, he said.

The economic consequences will be "extremely severe" and we will have "an extremely unhappy century" if we do not address the huge looming energy shortfall, Smalley said. "We must revolutionize energy [production] in the next couple of generations."

Yet the known energy alternatives to oil come with various limitations or drawbacks, said Smalley, who won the 1996 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Some alternatives are good but simply insufficient, he said. Conservation would help, for example, but "there's just not enough energy to be had" through conservation to meet the need, he said. Hydropower has reached its limits, Smalley said: even if we were to harness the Amazon River, among the last great untapped sources of hydropower, its energy "would only be a drop in the bucket." Wind power could make a "significant" contribution, "but not enough in itself" to meet the need, he said.

Other energy sources come laden with one problem or another, Smalley said. Coal might serve as a "bridge" to other energy solutions, he said, but its usage means putting more "gigatons" of carbon into the atmosphere, which the world can no longer endure. Nuclear fission and fusion are very expensive and they come saddled with problems such as waste disposal and high security requirements, he said.

The most promising solution is solar power, said Smalley, noting "the Earth is bathed" in 165,000 terawatts of energy every moment. The trick, he said, is to collect that energy (or the tiny portion people need) efficiently.
Nanotech's solar role

Nanotechnology figures mightily in the practical harnessing of solar power—and, for that matter, in any long-term energy solution, according to Smalley.

"Nanotechnology is right at the core [of] the answer to the energy problem," he said.

In the case of solar power, for example, nanotechnology holds the promise of cutting the cost of photovoltaics by 10 to 100 times, he said. It may bring about a similar-scale reduction in the cost of fuel cells, Smalley said, in enumerating two of "14 enabling nanotech revolutions" that could transform world energy production and usage.

These potential energy breakthroughs, which, he said, "could only come from nanotechnology," also include a "revolution" in hydrogen storage; direct conversion of light and water into hydrogen supplies; "photocatalytic" reduction of carbon dioxide; and nanomaterials, or coatings enabling the possibility of very deep drilling into Earth to obtain geothermal heat.

The best way to tap the sun's enormous energy stream may be to put solar power plants in space or on the moon, said Smalley, noting that solar cells in space could operate at about nine times the efficiency of similar cells on Earth.

"There [are] massive amounts of [solar] energy that miss the Earth every day," shooting right past it, he said.

Here again, nanotechnology would figure critically: providing "super-strong, light-weight materials" that would make it possible to build efficient solar power-collecting space stations, and perhaps leading to nanoelectronics-based robots that could handle tasks such as maintaining space-based solar energy systems.

With each type of energy he enumerated, Smalley came back to nanotechnology as the path to a solution. "I guarantee you" that nanotechnology will make fuel cells cheap enough to be practical, he said. Using coal requires sequestering the carbon: "Is there an answer? If there is, nanotechnology will provide it."

To make solar power work, "We need to find ways to make photovoltaics as cheap as paint"—and, again, nanotechnology can make the difference, he said.

Solving this gigantic energy problem, which Smalley termed "the largest enterprise of humanity" on the horizon, would go far toward solving many of humanity's other most pressing problems—such as food and water supplies, environmental degradation, and poverty—because they are so directly affected by the availability of energy, he said.

Smalley called for a $10 billion program to "kick-start" scientific work toward a long-term energy solution. "This generation needs to do this," he said. "We can't afford to wait."