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The following are some famous environmental quotes centered on the theme of nanotechnology. If you would like to go to the online environmental forum Click Here.
“As an emerging science in its infancy, nanotechnology promises the nano-scale manufacture of materials and machines made to atomic specifications.
The impact of nanotechnology on our way of life is widely believed to reach profound and hitherto unimagined levels in the coming decades. Proposed changes include clean abundant energy, pollution-free and inexpensive production of superior defect-free materials, complete environmental restoration and cleanup, safe and affordable space travel and colonization, and quantum leaps in medicine leading to perfect health and immortality. As a result of these advances, we anticipate the obsolescence of nearly all of today's industrial and economic processes by the first half of the new century, leading to global and radical changes in life style, finance, law, and politics.”
- Behfar Bastani and Dennis Fernandez
“In the short and mid term, failing to keep up with other nations in the research or adoption of nanotechnology has obvious negative consequences for an economy, both domestically and globally as world markets are increasingly dependent on each other. As quickly as technology is advancing, following Moore's Law, it will be an extraordinary challenge for any nation (or ethics) to catch up, if they fall too far behind. Think of the nations that missed the previous Industrial Revolution in the last century or even the Internet bandwagon today.”
- Patrick Lin
“Humankind is heading inexorably into an age of sweeping and unpredictable change. These changes are likely to happen sooner and be greater in scope than most people are able to grasp. Working to understand the potential of molecular manufacturing and to help plan for the disruptive changes it will bring about is the Center for Responsible Nanotechnology.”
- Rocky Rawstern
“I had been impressed by the fact that biological systems were based on molecular machines and that we were learning to design and build these sorts of things.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Currently, Al particles with native oxide coatings are widely used in explosives, propellants, and thermites to enhance performance. The use of nanoparticles and/or clusters would significantly increase the surface to volume ratios, and could greatly improve performance through tailored energy release and more efficient combustion.”
- Dr. Victor Bellitto
“Molecular manufacturing is going to be the mother of all disruptions, and if we manage to get through this century with our civilization intact, CRN's work will bear much of the credit.”
- Jamais Cascio
“Many near-term military applications will see benefits from reducing the high lifecycle cost of equipment operations and maintenance through nanotechnology-based coatings and composite materials, sensors and diagnostic devices, miniature systems and actuators on a chip, and an increased use of commercial off the shelf technology products that are made with nanotechnology and microsystems.”
- Neil Gordon
“Now that the natural scientists are taking this book seriously, it is high time that social scientists start to do so. The socio-economic and political changes that the nanotechnological revolution will usher in are difficult to imagine, but I think we had better start doing some serious thinking about them.”
- Don Lavoie, David H. and Charles G. Koch
“Northern California already possesses the necessary resources to position the region as a leader in nanotechnology, and we must ensure that qualified workers in the region are prepared to fill the jobs that will accompany the industry's anticipated boom.”
- Mike Honda
“Nanotechnology is manufacturing with atoms.”
- William Powell
“The frontier of nanotechnology moves closer each day as computer chips grow more dense with circuits and as fields like laser chemistry and polymer engineering grow from research oddities to a new source of patents and products. History will record that the vision of the nano-frontier began with Engines of Creation.”
- Bart Kosko
“Engines of Creation is that rarest of things, a technically sophisticated book that is still accessible to general readers. The Foresight Institute is distinguished from most other technology-related think tanks by its taking seriously - before the fact - the ethical and social ramifications of new technology.”
- Glenn Harlan Reynolds
“After realizing that we would eventually be able to build molecular machines that could arrange atoms to form virtually any pattern that we wanted, I saw that an awful lot of consequences followed from that.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“If technology is the engine of change, then nanotechnology is the fuel for humanity's future. Like any fuel, we must understand its usable capacity for doing work and apply that knowledge toward addressing humanity's needs. This a two-fold strategic process. The Center for Responsible Technology has the brainpower to do it.”
- Natasha Vita-More
“You can find academic and industrial groups doing some relevant work, but there isn't a focus on building complex molecular systems. In that respect, Japan is first, Europe is second, and we're third.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“The Center for Responsible Nanotechnology is fulfilling a transcendental role in the future of humanity. If it did not exist, it would have to be created. Nanotechnology can lead us to Heaven or Hell, and we have to be aware of the opportunities and threats.”
- José Luis Cordeiro
“While doing that I'd been following a variety of fields in science and technology, including the work in molecular biology, genetic engineering, and so forth.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“With nanotechnology we'll be able to build surgical tools that are molecular, both in their size and in their precision. For the first time we'll be able to intervene at the scale where the damage actually occurs and to reverse that injury.”
- Dr. Ralph Merkle
“On the molecular scale, you find it’s reasonable to have a machine that does a million steps per second, a mechanical system that works at computer speeds.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“We know the basic principles of molecular machinery will work because they do work.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Nanotechnology isn't a fad, it's a scientific voyage, and enthusiasm for what's ahead is key.”
- Michael L. Rourke
“Nanotechnology will, once it gets under way, depend on the tools we have then and our ability to use them, and not on the steps that got us there.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“In meeting after meeting over three days in Washington, DC, it became apparent that the federal government clearly grasps the almost limitless potential of nanotechnology to transform business and society, improving quality of life while creating new educational and employment opportunities. That America currently leads the world in nanotech development is testimony to the tremendous bi-partisan support we have received in DC. We applaud our government leaders for their vision and action, and although there is considerable work ahead to maintain our global leadership, the reception we received on this Policy Tour is proof positive that we have a true partner in the US government.”
- Sean Murdock
“In thinking about nanotechnology today, what's most important is understanding where it leads, what nanotechnology will look like after we reach the assembler breakthrough.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Most nanotechnology-based products pose little chance for public exposure and therefore pose little risk to health or the environment. That's because most uses are in composites in which the nanoparticles are encased in a product, such as golf clubs or car bumpers, or in nanoscale structures that are part of larger devices such as electronic circuits.”
- E. Clayton Teague
“Nanotechnology is a promissory note on the future. As a discipline, it provokes our creativity in uniquely interdisciplinary ways. It asks us to imagine, to dream, and to dare.”
- John Kao
“Thanks to the pioneering work of the Foresight Institute, real progress is being made in nanotechnology, with tremendous promise for improving our lives in the 21st century.”
- Robert W. Poole
“We believe that nanotech is the next great technology wave, the nexus of scientific innovation that revolutionizes most industries and indirectly affects the fabric of society. Historians will look back on the upcoming epoch with no less portent than the Industrial Revolution.”
- Steve Jurvetson
“Just as silicon transistors replaced old vacuum tube technology and enabled the electronic age, carbon nanotube devices could open a new era of electronics.”
- Margaret Blohm
“Molecular nanotechnology (MNT) will be an extremely flexible manufacturing technology, able to produce a broad array of weapons. It will be fast, cheap, self-contained, and automated. This means that it will allow very rapid design of new weapons, and even more rapid deployment. Our technical research has shown that once a basic limited MNT capability is developed, advanced manufacturing may be only a few months away. It will be a huge force multiplier - enough to make whoever controls it a world superpower.”
- Chris Phoenix
“We think that the biggest breakthroughs in nanotechnology are going to be in the new materials that are developed.”
- Troy Kirkpatrick
“If we can reduce the cost and improve the quality of medical technology through advances in nanotechnology, we can more widely address the medical conditions that are prevalent and reduce the level of human suffering.”
- Ralph Merkle
“Starting around 2010, workers will cultivate expertise with systems of nanostructures, directing large numbers of intricate components to specified ends. One application could involve the guided self-assembly of nanoelectronic components into three-dimensional circuits and whole devices. Medicine could employ such systems to improve the tissue compatibility of implants, or to create scaffolds for tissue regeneration, or perhaps even to build artificial organs.”
- Mihail C. Roco
“Nanotechnology could offer solutions, not temporary fixes, to some of the most serious problems faced by humanity including water, renewable energy, and childhood diseases. CRN is leading the way in frank and honest discussions about how this technology will impact our future.”
- Rosa Wang
“Engines of Creation is one of the most exciting books that I've ever read. It describes the remarkable yet inevitable consequences of nanotechnology in a simple, clear and completely believable fashion.”
- Andy Hertzfeld
“From shape-shifting armor to fabric that can turn away microbes, as well as bullets to new power sources, the defense industries are launching major initiatives and planning for Nanotechnology. The Government is the major source of funding for current Nanotechnology initiatives. Centers of Excellence in Nanotechnology have been established around the country. The basic research in Nanotechnology conducted at these centers will provide the foundation upon which real world applications can be built. Other centers are already concentrating on military application of Nanotechnology. While there are efforts for new and improved weapons based on Nanotechnology, the vast majority of the Nanotechnology research and applied research fall into the support category.”
- Kevin G. Coleman
“Protein engineering is a technology of molecular machines - of molecular machines that are part of replicators - and so it comes from an area that already raises some of the issues that nanotechnology will raise.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“The U.S. currently leads the world in nanotech development, but has several strong international competitors that threaten our leadership position.”
- Sean Murdock
“Every industry that involves manufactured items will be impacted by nanotechnology research. Everything can be made in some way better—stronger, lighter, cheaper, easier to recycle—if it’s engineered and manufactured at the nanometer scale.”
- Stan Williams
“I am certain that nanotechnology holds huge promise. In medicine. In energy. In computer processing. In so many areas. But unless environmental, health, and safety issues are addressed in a way that fosters public understanding and support for nanotechnology, that potential is in jeopardy. I, for one, am unwilling to let that happen.”
- Ron Wyden
“And that because the moving parts are a million times smaller than the ones we're familiar with, they move a million times faster, just as a smaller tuning fork produces a higher pitch than a large one.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“If I had to pick the No. 1 challenge facing nanotechnology firms, it's environmental, health, and safety regulation and the question of public perception.”
- Ron Wyden
“Solar cells and most modern displays are examples of organic hybrids. But as we move to a renaissance in medicine with nanotech, matter becomes code.”
- Steve Jurvetson
“Nanotechnology will let us build computers that are incredibly powerful. We'll have more power in the volume of a sugar cube than exists in the entire world today.”
- Ralph Merkle
“Foresight has been quite successful in promoting the concept of nanotechnology and in making it a serious area of scientific research. Its real work is yet to come, as it leads the public in grappling with the huge social transformations that nanotechnology will impose upon every living human being.”
- John Gilmore
“Coal and diamonds, sand and computer chips, cancer and healthy tissue: throughout history, variations in the arrangement of atoms have distinguished the cheap from the cherished, the diseased from the healthy. Arranged one way, atoms make up soil, air, and water arranged another, they make up ripe strawberries. Arranged one way, they make up homes and fresh air; arranged another, they make up ash and smoke.”
- Eric Drexler
“Over time, there won't be a single market that is not in some way changed by what we are learning about how the molecular building blocks of existing materials can be combined and manipulated to produce and deliver new materials.”
- Emily Allen
“Although it is tempting to start with a question like, 'What would a modern battlefield be like with molecular manufacturing,' this question is meaningless. It is as pointless as trying to imagine a modern battlefield without electricity. Without radios, airplanes, and computers, war would be completely different. Imagination is not sufficient to generate this picure-it simply doesn't make sense to talk of a modern military without electricity. Molecular manufacturing will have a similarly profound effect on near-future military affairs.”
- Chris Phoenix
“We have the means right now to live long enough to live forever. Existing knowledge can be aggressively applied to dramatically slow down aging processes so we can still be in vital health when the more radical life extending therapies from biotechnology and nanotechnology become available. But most baby boomers won't make it because they are unaware of the accelerating aging process in their bodies and the opportunity to intervene.”
- Ray Kurzweil
“The really big difference is that what you make with a molecular machine can be completely precise, down to the tiniest degree of detail that can exist in the world.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Over the next ten years, the fields of chemistry, physics, material sciences, biology, and computational sciences will converge in a way that will define nanotechnology and impact almost every industry, including computers, semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, defense, health care, communications, transportation, energy, environmental sciences, entertainment, chemicals, and manufacturing. Previously distinct disciplines will also combine: medicine and engineering, law and science, art and physics, etc. This merging will result in developments that are not simply evolutionary; they will be revolutionary.”
- Jack Uldrich & Deb Newberry
“My greatest concern is that the emergence of this technology without the appropriate public attention and international controls could lead to an unstable arms race.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“I wish I had never used the term 'grey goo'.”
- Eric Drexler
“If you take all the factories in the world today, they could make all the parts necessary to build more factories like themselves. So, in a sense, we have a self-replicating industrial system today, but it would take a tremendous effort to copy what we already have.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“We see it (nanotechnology) as having virtually unlimited potential to transform the way we produce, deliver, and use energy, not to mention its likely effect on medical technology and national security.”
- Spencer Abraham
“Nanotechnology is probably, as a phenomenon, the single most important new emerging force in technology.”
- Charlie Harris
“Likewise nanotechnology will, once it gets under way, depend on the tools we have then and our ability to use them, and not on the steps that got us there.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“The basic parts, the start-up molecules, can be supplied in abundance and don't have to be made by some elaborate process. That immediately makes things simpler.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Nanotechnology is the base technology of an industrial revolution in the 21st century. Those who control nanotechnology will lead the industry.”
- Michiharu Nakamura
“Engines of Creation is one of the most important books in recent memory, and the Foresight Institute the best tool we have for using its ideas wisely.”
- Dr. Stanley Schmidt
“The revolutionary promise of molecular nanotechnology (MNT) has become a part of society's expectations for the future. This technology will provide nanomedicine breakthroughs that could cure cancer and extend lifespace, bring abundance without environmental harm and provide clean sources of energy. These ideas are part of the vision that launched the field of nanotechnology.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“Nanotechnology is going to change America on a scale equal to, if not greater than, the computer revolution. Harnessing the power of nanotechnology is one of the keys to ensuring that our nation continues to be an economic powerhouse in this new century.”
- Ron Wyden
“The other advantage is that in conventional manufacturing processes, it takes a long time for a factory to produce an amount of product equal to its own weight. With molecular machines, the time required would be something more like a minute.”
- K. Eric Drexler
“We envision biocompatible surgical nanorobots that can find and eliminate isolated cancerous cells, remove microvascular obstructions and recondition vascular endothelial cells, perform 'noninvasive' tissue and organ transplants, conduct molecular repairs on traumatized extracellular and intracellular structures, and even exchange new whole chromosomes for old ones inside individual living human cells.”
- Robert A. Freitas, Jr.