Science On The Hill
Spring 2006 1may2006
When Berkeley Lab's Molecular Foundry — a new world-class nanoscience facility constructed on a hillside near Centennial Drive — begins operations this spring, Lab employees and neighbors can be assured that the work will be conducted under the strictest regulations for safety. Human health and environmental protection are the highest priorities, according to Foundry officials.
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The Lab's new Molecular Foundry will help scientists farther research in nanotechnology, while ensuring that human health and environmental protection are the highest priorities. |
Working within a nascent scientific field where not everything is known about nanoparticles and their impacts, Lab scientists nonetheless feel confident that the nature of the work in Berkeley and the built-in controls of the state-of-the-art six-story structure are more than sufficient to protect the community and its inhabitants.
In a letter to Berkeley Mayor Tom Bates and the City Council in December, the Lab conveyed the following message: "We strongly believe that adequate protections are in place to protect against any hazards?' It noted the extremely small quantities of material that will be used in the research, their stability in either liquid or solid media, and the closed nature of the lab areas, which prevents environmental releases. Waste will be handled, like chemicals, under the strictest management and disposal regulations.
The byproducts of this unprecedented analysis and manipulation of the tiniest of materials will pave the way for new cancer treatments; new sources of clean, safe and sustainable energy; and novel methods for preventing and repairing dam-age to the environment. In the next 10 years, nanotechnology may lead to drugs that detect, attach to and kill diseased cells in the body; solar cells that can be embedded in roofing and siding, making individual homes power generators; highly sensitive sensors of chemical or biological agents in fabric, furniture and building materials; and ultra-light, powerful batteries.
The Molecular Foundry is one of five Nanoscale Science Research Centers that have been established by the Department of Energy. Its dramatic 94,500-square-foot, cantilevered design emphasizes interdisciplinary team science, with each interconnected floor focusing on 'a different aspect of inquiry - imaging, fabrication, theory, organic and inorganic synthesis and characterization, and biological materials.
All work with nanoscale materials at the Foundry will be on a laboratory scale, typically involving much less than a gram of material at a time. The Foundry is not equipped to ratchet up operations to production scale, or to handle very dangerous material.
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Commentary
by Paul Goettlich
Considering that there are essentially no regulations on nanotechnology, it will be a snap to conform to them. One reason there are few regulations on this science is because they do not know what to regulate. In terms of a question, How can one regulate something when next to nothing is known about it?
The behavior of nanoparticles is essentially unknown. Like every technology before it, there is great promise that it will heal the sick, "raise the dead" and give us the power to walk on water. As we look at the history of technology in the last 50 to 100 years we see — along with the benefits — a multitude of environmental, health, economic and social effects that far outweigh those benefits. It is essential to overlook those highly negative aspects in order to see the promises as a justification for pursuing this new technology.
If the perceived benefits are studied, it becomes clear that the promises are mostly unfulfilled. For one, cancer has not been cured. Deaths from some cancers have slowed slightly. But the rate at which people get cancer continues to increase. All the money in the world that gets pumped into "the cure" will amount to nothing without attacking the problem. The fact that people are dying from cancer is a symptom. The problem is the lifestyle we chose, in which we use the toxic technologies that surround us — plastics, pesticides, genetic engineering and all forms of radiation, including nuclear power generation, microwave communication, depleted uranium on the battlefield, microwave ovens, security detection devices and so much more.
Analyze this statement from the article at left:
"Working within a nascent scientific field where not everything is known about nanoparticles and their impacts, Lab scientists nonetheless feel confident that the nature of the work in Berkeley and the built-in controls of the state-of-the-art six-story structure are more than sufficient to protect the community and its inhabitants."
Nascent has the following synonyms: promising, hopeful, embryonic, emerging. Once again, past promises have fallen short of the mark and have delivered far more problems than solutions. And these new problems are far greater in magnitude than the initial problems the technology was to solve. For instance, there is now more plastic, by weight, than zooplankton floating in the middle of the Pacific. And there are two floating "garbage patches" of plastic in the Pacific that are as large as the State of Texas. The plastic is also well-integrated in all strata of the oceans such that it is utterly impossible to remove it. And if it could be removed, where would it be stored? The chemicals from plastics are also in our bodies where they are creating havoc on all areas of our health and viability.
The real promise that will be delivered, even if not sustainably, will be profit for a few individuals.
The article states that "not everything is known about nanoparticles and their impacts..." and in the same sentence continues to display confidence. If these are bonafide scientists, they would not be stating confidence in the face of a void, which is essentially what is known about nanoparticles. Put in positive terms, the statement should have been written as, "Essentially nothing is known about nanoparticles and their impacts."
They have "built-in controls," but what is it they will control if they know nothing about it? Nanoparticles do not behave the same between similar experiments in spite of scientists feeling they are in control. They simply have no idea of what to look for or what they are observing when something happens. The variables are not known at this time and I highly suspect that they will take a great many years to be known, if at all. I'd like to state that they will never know the variables required to control nanoparticles, but by the same fact that they are unknown, of course I cannot.
What is a state-of-the-art six-story structure? This has a very high-brow sort of feel to it. But being an architect, I can tell you that this is nothing more than hype. The more complex we design and build, the more problems will come to light. And quite frankly, state of the art of architecture is not worth the money paid for it. However, if we continue on the same course with the dispersing of technologies throughout the world, we will probably need state of the art buildings to protect us from the environment, no matter how poorly the buildings will work in that task.
In short, the well-meaning people who wrote this article haven't a clue as to what real-world effects can and will take place as they continue with discovery. But the big thrust in much of it is from the Army. And we all know where that leads to — eternal war.
