NanotechnologyInvestment.com Reports: Revolutionary
Nanotechnology Developments Part 2 - Innovations in Renewable
Energy and Homeland Defense Attributable to Nanotech
Nanotechnology developments spearheading new initiatives at Ford
Motor Company and Boeing.
Brian Eriksen Noer reports for
www.NanotechnologyInvestment.com
November 2005
In the second of a two part report NanotechnologyInvestment.com
details the current advancements in the science of
Nanotechnology, and specifically as those innovations impact
diverse sectors such as Renewable Energy and Homeland Defense.
The emerging science is being embraced by everyone from giant
corporations like Ford and Boeing, to smaller manufacturing
firms like solar energy technology developer XsunX (OTCBB:
XSNX). To read the full text of Part 1 of this report, please
click here:
http://www.investorideas.com/Companies/Nanotechnology/Articles/Dr
iving_Force_Behind.asp
In part 2, further sector perspectives are revealed from
industry participants: John Ginder, Acting Manager of the
Physical and Environmental Sciences Department with Ford Motor
Company (NYSE: F); John Belk, Nanotechnologist with Boeing; Tom
Djokovich, CEO of solar technology developer XsunX, Inc. (OTCBB:
XSNX); and NanoDynamics Inc. CEO, Keith Blakely.
Government and Corporate Funding
As nanotechnology redefines the landscape of many different
industries, investors should be acutely aware of which companies
and organizations are in receipt of government or private
funding to drive their research and manufacturing activities.
Corporate nanotech R&D expenditure in 2005 (exclusive of
government funding) is expected to total $1.8 billion in the
U.S., $1.1 billion in Japan, $296 million in Germany, and $213
million in South Korea.
Earlier this year (January 2005) the Governor of New York,
George Pataki announced that corporate commitments amounting to
$2.7bn had been offered to New York State by 11 companies
interested in semiconductor and nanotechnology research and
development infrastructure. The companies who offered this
funding included IBM, Sony, Toshiba, Samsung, (chip equipment
manufacturer) ASML and a consortium of nanoelectronics equipment
suppliers.
Following Pataki's announcement earlier in the year, in late
September, IBM and Applied Materials Inc. launched their $300m
partnership to develop new microchip technologies. The
partnership would incorporate 80 researchers working at Albany
Nanotech (a research facility affiliated with the State
University of New York - funded both by the government and the
private sector).
The technologies developed by this partnership are expected to
generate applications within the fields of blood testing; DNA
sequencing; drug development and delivery; telecommunications;
artificial intelligence software; and sensors for environmental,
energy and defense applications.
Also in late September the Canadian government announced that
they would be funding $5.5m worth of research in India - an
amount that will be matched by the Indian government. The
project, part of Canada's International Science and Technology
Partnership Program (formed to develop research alliances and to
commercialize innovative technologies with India, China, Brazil
and Israel) aims to focus on the areas of biotechnology;
nanotechnology; information and communication technology;
sustainable energy and disaster management.
A technology like nanotech, which is anticipated to introduce
widespread changes and developments will almost certainly also
cause societal changes. The National Science Foundation has
granted $6.2m to Arizona State University's Center for
Nanotechnology in order to study and anticipate the societal,
ethical, and unintended consequences these technological
advances could have. The Center will also to study how societal
demands will direct and dictate research efforts. The effects
that will be studied include: privacy and security, human
identity and enhancement, potential use of nanotech by
terrorists, environmental and health risks, and societal and
economic equity.
Market Drivers
NanoDynamics Inc. CEO, Keith Blakely believes that the prospects
for incorporating nanotechnology and nanomaterials into
industrial and consumer products, along with significant use of
these materials in health care (from diagnostics and imaging to
antimicrobial surfaces and drug delivery) and in energy
applications, are significant.
"The continued reliance upon oil - a finite resource for energy
- will drive the research and applications of nanotechnology in
batteries, thermoelectrics, photovoltaics, hydrogen storage, and
fuel cells. Similarly, we believe that the need for clean water
around the world will drive further investigation and
utilization of nanotechnology based filtration, purification,
remediation, and desalination processes and systems. And, of
course, the incessant demand for improvements in personal health
and well-being will provide adequate incentives to companies to
develop improved materials and processes using nanotechnology
for a broad range of health care applications."
Solar Technology Developments
Tom Djokovich, CEO of solar technology developer XsunX, Inc.
(OTCBB: XSNX) agreed with Blakely that burgeoning global energy
demands will help to drive nanotechnology development towards
the field of renewable energy.
"There are exciting new opportunities opening up in the solar
energy markets for products that deliver performance
characteristics such as increased conversion efficiencies,
reduced costs per watt, flexibility of materials, light weight
cell structures, the use of more readily available materials,
and designs allowing the use of solar cells in common building
materials to promote wide scale use of solar technologies," said
Mr. Djokovich. "By manipulating materials at the nano scale
level to deliver the necessary performance requirements we are
helping to move the solar energy markets towards the next
generation of product applications and costs savings."
"The solar energy market is currently dominated by the use of
crystalline wafers accounting for over 90% of the market,"
Djokovich continued. "Largely through enormous expenditures in
manufacturing infrastructure of crystalline cells, costs have
been reduced, but there is a shortage of available materials to
fill the growth in demand and few if any further costs reducing
opportunities may be available to this industry. The general
market consensus is that only thin film technologies can provide
the route to lower costs."
"At XsunX we have focused on the development of new types of
thin film technologies that provide performance characteristics
to address cost reduction and application opportunities," said
Mr. Djokovich. "Our Power Glass® transparent thin film cell is
in development for applications in architectural glass
construction, and we're launching a new development program
aimed at the development of high performance thin film cells
using nano scale manufacturing methods."
"We are developing a new patent pending solar cell structure
that sandwiches the use of two separate materials,
nano-crystalline Silicon (nc-Si:H) and amorphous Silicon
(a-Si:H), in a thin film structure that employs the use of
1/400th the materials used in conventional silicon wafer
designs. These extremely small structures are combined to form a
4 terminal solar cell structure that holds a promising
opportunity of delivering the performance characteristics of
crystalline wafer cells at a fraction of the cost."
Ford's Nanotech Focus
In part 1 of this report John Ginder (Acting Manager of the
Physical and Environmental Sciences Department with Ford Motor
Company (NYSE: F)) and John Belk (Nanotechnologist with Boeing)
discussed their plans to form an alliance with Northwestern
University to research and develop commercial nanotechnology
applications. The project will focus on clean fuel burning
hybrid cars, as well as developments in specialty metals,
thermal materials, coatings and sensors.
In part 2 of this report, Ginder elaborated upon his earlier
comments that in some cases new inventions will be required to
enable developments in propulsion technology: hybrid vehicles;
clean diesel technology; hydrogen powered vehicles; and fuel
cells. Ginder is optimistic that many of those inventions will
come to fruition through the areas of nanostructured materials.
Specific innovations that are required include: battery
electrodes, battery materials, fuel cell electrodes, hydrogen
storage materials, filters for particulates in diesel exhausts,
new catalytic materials for use in Ford's existing products as
well as future propulsion technologies. "Ford believes that the
impact on our products is going to be huge," said Ginder. "We
are not quite sure where the biggest impacts are going to be
just yet, but we know what the general areas are going to be."
Another research focus for the alliance will be in the area of
biofuels. "Right now," said Ginder, "we do not know the
product's impact. But what we foresee is a suite of diverse
technologies: it is not going to be all hybrid, all diesel, or
all hydrogen, but we project that in 30 years a range of
technologies will each contribute some portion of the total,
resulting in the reduction of our dependence on hydrocarbon or
fossil fuels."
"Obviously there is going to be a phasing in of these
technologies, but I think the more conventional technologies
will be the ones to be utilized first." Ginder believes that the
clean diesel technology is first on the horizon, "it is mandated
by regulation and it is the closest to what we already know how
to do. We can expect to see this technology commercially
available later this decade. In parallel, we have the
development of hybrid vehicles and there is opportunity there
for those of us that work in research to try to improve battery
performance, and that would certainly help that sector's overall
picture."
According to Ginder, diesels and hybrids will be commercially
available in the relative near term and then farther out:
hydrogen. "We have all read estimates on when fuel cells will
become practical, but there are a lot of inventions required to
make them viable. In fact, we are just completing our five-city,
30-car program to conduct real-world testing of fuel cell
technology. The hydrogen internal combustion engine is perhaps
the easiest innovation to implement, as it involves relatively
conventional technologies."
Boeing's Hopes for Nanotechnology
In part two of this report, John Belk (Nanotechnologist with
Boeing) also furthered his comments upon Ford and Boeing's
nanotechnology alliance with Northwestern University,
specifically upon the reasons for the choice of Northwestern
University as the scholastic partner of choice in this venture.
Northwestern University received one of the nation's first
nanotechnology centers and has been awarded hundreds of millions
of dollars of nanotechnology-related funding. Ford and Boeing
will be able to leverage this world-class resource through the
Alliance while broadening both firms' overall relationship with
the University. "We have called this Alliance a 'no brainer'
several times internally," said Belk, "there is no doubt that
this Alliance is beneficial for Boeing and as well as for our
relationship with Ford and the students at Northwestern
University.
Belk believes that the most interesting new applications in the
renewable energy sector are in the area of solar cell.
"Researchers have developed methods to lower costs and increase
efficiency, bringing the advantages of exotic material cells
closer to the price point of cells made with the more common
inexpensive materials. There is a lot of forthcoming innovation
within the domain of solar panels - I don't know when it will
become commercially available, but the benefit is a much lower
cost than present technologies represent. I suspect that we are
going to be very pleased in the next few years with discoveries
in the area of solar energy research."
Nanotech in defense
NanoDynamics Inc. has developed and demonstrated the first truly
portable solid oxide fuel cell for combat soldier use, which is
capable of running on a conventional fuel, such as propane. "The
unusual performance and portability is the result of the
carefully engineered integration and use of nanomaterials in the
cell and reformer," explained CEO Blakely. "Additionally, we are
actively working on the application of nanomaterials in bulk
thermoelectric materials, photovoltaic thin films, and thin film
batteries. We are addressing the need for affordable, high
quality, and precisely controlled metal, ceramic, and carbon
based nanomaterials that can be supplied on a commercial scale."
JMAR Technologies, Inc. (JMAR) announced on October 13th that
they have been awarded a Phase I SBIR (Small Business Innovative
Research) grant from the U.S. Army. The grant will be utilized
to support JMAR's R&D for a compact laser system, capable of
real time spectrochemical hazard analysis in the field - in
layman's terms: detecting hazardous materials from a safe,
remote location. This new research will be based upon the
company's existing BriteLight dual-pulse laser technology, which
is planned to be modified to provide performance, weight, and
cost advantages of a field portable detection system. The
BriteLight technology also features applications in nanotech
scale fabrication, microscopy and soft X-ray source generation.
Brian Noer
Brian Noer has a degree in Business and Economics from the
University of Western, Ontario. His career in the financial
markets spans sixteen years and several continents, including:
Manager with The Bank of Montreal in Canada, Associate Analyst
with the structured finance group at Moody's Investor Services
in the UK, and Editor for several financial trade magazines in
the UK for both Thomson Financial Publishing and Euromoney PLC
(titles include Thomson's trade magazines "The International
Securitisation Report," and "Capital Market Strategies," and
Euromoney's "Asset Finance International"). Brian is the Writer,
Editor and Research Associate for the InvestorIdeas.com portal
team.
Disclaimer:
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