nanoREV.

Bailouts, Atlas Shrugged, and Nanotechnology

Anyone familiar with the novel Atlas Shrugged will recognize some similarities between the events of the novel and the current economic predicament. In the novel the devaluation of the ideas of innovators in comparison to the needs of the masses eventually leads to economic decline followed by government bailouts followed by further economic decline. Continued requests for bailouts from the auto industry seem to follow the same path. The question is what innovations will the auto industry produce to earn any assistance? While, like most large corporations, there is much development in improving the existing systems in automobiles the major innovations seems to mostly be emerging from smaller companies such as Tesla Motors or foreign companies such as Hyundai and Toyota (e.g. a search of the number of patents using the term “hybrid vehicle” finds 33 to Hyundai, 32 to Toyota but only 8 to GM). So, based on their track record of innovation it would seem that a bailout to the U.S. would be a bad investment and a better investment would be in the smaller companies developing more innovative automotive technologies. Some areas where nanotechnology can contribute to this include:

Nanoparticles for improved automotive coatings - Nanovere Technologies has developed some new scratch resistance and self-cleaning coating materials applicable to automotive coatings.

Nanomaterial Enabled Battery, Solar Cell and Fuel Cell Power - Alternative energy sources produced by companies such as A123Systems (lithium batteries), NanoSys (fuel cells/solar), Nanosolar (solar), and Innovalight(solar) provide nanomaterials for enhanced energy production as potential alternatives to enable non-fossil fuel or hybrid power solutions.

Neuromorphic computing for driverless automobiles - Inspired by DARPA’s Grand Challenge there is a drive to create true AUTOmobiles removing the necessity of a human driver with the potential to reduce accidents caused by human error, increase efficiency of drive time and energy use, and providing freedom to the passenger to perform other activity without worrying about driving or directions to a particular destination. While this is still in the early stages the developments of neuromorphic and reconfigurable computing architectures by Hewlett-Packard (using memristor crossbars) and Nantero (using carbon nanotube mechanical switches) have the potential to advance this effort.