Nanotechnology has tremendous potential to reduce the amount of energy humans consume through a vast variety of applications. It can create more efficient electronics, cutting down on energy consumption and the need for larger toxic batteries. Carbon nanotubes can provide structural strength, store tremendous amounts of electricity in a very small space and even help boil water faster.

But recent concerns about nanotech construction, and the harmful environmental effects of these submicroscopic wonders are taking some of the gleam off their previously rosy potential.

While reports as early as the Royal Society's 2004 investigation recommended keeping a close regulatory eye on the use and production of nanotechnology, nano-engineered products rapidly found their way into a welcoming consumer market. Nanotech brought cooler, better-smelling and more strain resistant clothing, and its apparent ability to minimize resources funneled award after award onto nanotech-using companies.

Through all the hype, concerns about exposure safety remain ever-present. We do have precedent though, as other dangerous materials, such as asbestos and lead, have been well-regulated in the second half of the Twentieth Century, and continue to deliver fireproofing and radiation-shielding benefits without undue environmental impacts.

But earlier this year, a study at Ohio State found that pound-for-pound, over the lifecycle of the product, the environmental impacts of carbon nanofibers may be up to 100 times that of traditional materials. Another study, published in Yale's Journal of Industrial Ecology, highlighted other inefficiencies in the process, and concluded that the environmental impacts come close to negating the energy- and resource-saving abilities of nanotech products

"To date, most attention has focused on the possible toxic effects of exposure to nanoparticles and appropriately so." states Gus Speth, of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. "But the 'old-fashioned' considerations of pollution and energy use arising from the production technologies used to make nanomaterials need attention as well."

Still, even with the environmental risks, nanotechnology offers far too much potential gain to dismiss now, even with the identified shortcomings. Free markets have a way of streamlining and improving manufacturing processes, making them safer, cleaner, and more reliable. As citizens in manufacturing powerhouses like China and India become more concerned with quality of life, stricter environmental controls will further clean up nanotech production. There may, of course, be corresponding increases in price, but in a warming and limit-resource world, it's a price we should consider paying.

Image: Wikipedia