A few years back the National Science Foundation and its National Nanotechnology Initiative proclaimed that the Nanotechnology Industry will be a $1 trillion industry by 2015.
Since that time, this figure has been quoted by nearly everyone to justify just about every commercial endeavor in the area of nanotechnology.
We here at Cientifica have always maintained that no such industry exists and that there isnt much use in trying to define one. At first, we were a lone voice in the woods, but more and more people are coming around to this realization.
Well, now the US Government has addressed the issue in the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) recently released report, The National Nanotechnology Initiative at Five Years: Assessment and Recommendations of the National Nanotechnology Advisory Panel.
Heres the part that captured our interest:
Any credible attempt to define a nanotechnology industry, therefore, will have to establish a threshold contribution level and explain why that level was chosen. This report does not attempt to choose or defend such a threshold.
So, finally we have some responsible thinking here. Perhaps the entire value of a Mercedes Benz automobile should not go to calculate the value of nanotechnology just because its coatings may have some nanoparticles in it?!
If the PCAST now thinks it prudent to step away from defining a nanotechnology industry, do we still have to labor under that $1 trillion nanotechnology industry number? Cant the NNI or the NSF say: By the way, we had no real way of coming up with that number, so dont quote us on that anymore.
Not likely, we know, but it would be nice.