Green Dreams of Reason. Green Nanotechnology Between Visions of Excess and Control

The title of the first report [22] of the US National Science and Technology Council (NSTC)—‘Shaping the World Atom by Atom’—lends itself to the nanotechnology programme. The expression ‘green nanotechnology’ does not appear in this report, although there are very clear references to sustainability principles.

Barbara Karn, project leader at the US environmental agency, in a report entitled ‘Nanotechnology and Life Cycle Assessment’ 2007. Cf. also her foreword in K. F. Schmidt ([26]:4).

An article (‘Risky dwarfs’) in the German-language Greenpeace magazine stresses that it is completely uncertain ‘[h]ow great the risk potential’ of nanoparticles is (N. Boeing [3, 4]). M. R. Wiesner, Director of the ‘Environmental and Energy Systems Institute’ at Rice University in Houston also points out that little is known about the behaviour of nanoparticles in the environment [30]. H. Krug, head of the ‘Materials-Biology-Interaction’ Department at the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials and Testing (EMPA) in Dübendorf, makes a similar point in an interview in a recently published brochure of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) on ‘Opportunities and Risks’ of nanotechnology (BMBF [2]: 48–49). Apart from this reference, the BMBF brochure is less a critical reflection on opportunities and risks than an easy-going, market and consumption-oriented celebration of the opportunities. The fact that public monies are used for expensive campaigns designed to assuage the public’s fears of nanotechnology rather than spending the money on risk research and prevention plans is also lamented by Hartmut König from the Hessian consumer advice agency: ‘This is cynical from the point of view of the consumer […] and has just the opposite effect.’ (quoted in Boeing [3, 4]).

For (1) see the article by Lubbadeh [16], ‘Nanotubes have a similar impact to asbestos’, for (2) Maynard et al. ([17]:267–269), ‘Commentary: Safe handling of nanotechnology’, for (3) Schwarz [27], ‘Wilde and liederliche Naturen: Stanislaw Lem’s nanotechnologische Vorbilder’ (Wild and loose natures: Stanislaw Lem’s nanotechnology), for (4) Crichton [7], for (5) ETC Group [8], ‘The Big Down: From Genomes to Atoms. Atomtech: Technologies Converging at the Nano-scale’, and for (6) Joy [13], ‘Why the future doesn’t need us? Our most powerful 21st-century technologies—robotics, genetic engineering, and nanotech—are threatening to make humans an endangered species’.

On the relationship between classical utopian discourse and nanotechnological visions, see Saage [25], ‘Future visions of converging technologies and classical utopian discourse’ and Coenen [6], ‘Posthumanist techno-futurism in the debates about nanotechnology and converging technologies.’

I include in ecotechnology research areas and disciplines such as sustainability research, engineering ecology, environmental planning and industrial ecology (see, for example, [24] and also [19]). All of them share the commitment to sustainable principles such as sparsames resource management, acceptance of limits to growth and the like.

Discourse is used here in the sense of an historical analysis of discourses oriented towards a hermeneutic interpretation. The use of concepts and arguments is construed in its historical, socio-political and local context. This ‘archive-reading’ allows not only for a classical reconstruction of the use and meanings of a word, but also for an analysis of the cognitive status of words applied in different linguistic practices (see e.g. [5]). This latter point—the cognitive status in different social and political environments—is what I am especially interested in when analyzing the concepts “green nanotechnology” and “grüne Nanotechnologie”.

With few interesting exceptions—Greenpeace, for example, is not among these critics, whereas the Canadian ‘ETC-Group’ most certainly is. The group is very nearly alone in calling for a moratorium on nanotechnological products and procedures.

What kind of surrender might drive this permanent transgression, and what the seductive power is that draws it, is developed in another paper entitled ‘The lure of the “yes”’ [21]. I return to this issue later on.

A more detailed philosophical discussion of the conceptual pairing of ‘control’ and ‘excess’, starting from the general and specific economy of George Bataille (The accursed share, 1949) and other authors who make direct reference to it, can be found in Schwarz & Nordmann [29]. Bataille addresses excess also as the fundamental structure of Eros and as such as ‘the other’ of control [29].

Other linguistic and national specificities, such as the French nanotechnologie verte or the Spanish nanotecnologia verde, still await closer investigation.

I am referring here above all to the boundary discourse conducted since the end of the 1980s in the history and philosophy of science, and in particular to boundary objects [15] and border zones [14].

The Center was established in 1968 by the American Congress as an ‘international institute for advanced study, symbolizing and strengthening the fruitful relationship between the world of learning and the world of public affairs’ ([26]: 33).

The ‘Pew Charitable Trust’ is an independent, non-profit non-governmental organisation. It was established in 1948 and has set itself the task of serving ‘the public interest by providing information, advancing policy solutions, and supporting civic life.’ ([26]: 34).

The principles of green engineering were published in 2003 as the result of a conference entitled ‘Green Engineering: Designing the Principles’.

For a more detailed account based on a ‘modernity argument’ see Joos van Loon in Risk and Technological Culture.

Iron nanoparticles are extremely versatile; they are put to use because of their catalytic and magnetic properties. They are used, for example, in the process of making synthetic ammonia in the Haber-Bosch procedure, in hyperthermia in medicine, in magnetic data storage and sensoring technology—and, of course, in soil and water remediation (see B. J. Feder, ‘Aiding the Environment, a Nanostep at a Time’).

See http://​www.​forumnano.​org (last accessed 25.8.08). The slogan could also simply be ‘green is on the advance’—even a merely superficial glance at the media indicates that the terms ‘eco’ and ‘green’ are experiencing something of a revival: In a famous German talkshow, the executive director of the Social Democrats, H. Heil, proclaimed: ‘We need an ecological industrial policy’ (Anne Will Show, July 13.2008). The magazine Zeit Wissen makes ‘how eco becomes logical’ the main theme of its June/July 2008 edition. ‘Eco—and still fun’ or ‘c’est chic—and it’s even eco’ and similar leads can be frequently encountered of late in the daily German and Swiss press.

A report on this event is available at http://​www.​forumnano.​org (last accessed: 21.8.08).

The nano quality seal was awarded this year for the first time for a product used in coating sailing canvas, as well as for a product used for coating glass. The products’ names are ‘SEALnGLIDE+glaze’, produced by the company Holmenkol Sport-Technologies GmbH & Co. KG, and ‘TCnano ApS’ by TCnano from Denmark respectively.

See the article by K. Spilok, ‘Umweltschutz per Nanotechnik’ (Environmental protection via nanotechnology), VDI nachrichten, 20.10.2006, available at http://​www.​vdi-nachrichten.​com/​vdi_​nachrichten/​aktuelle_​ausgabe/​akt_​ausg_​detail.​asp?​source=​volltext&​cat=​2&​id=​30248 (last accessed: 21.8.08) and the article ‘Nanobiotechnologie—Zwerge beherrschen die Umwelt’ (Nanobiotechnology—dwarfs rule the environment), in BIOPRO, 19.10.06, available at http://​www.​bio-pro.​de/​de/​life/​magazin/​02736/​index.​html (last accessed: 21.8.08).

See the press release from S. Voser, ‘NanoEco-Umwelttagung: Wie verhalten sich Nanopartikel in der Umwelt?’ (NanoEco Environment Conference: How do nanoparticles behave in the environment?), 14.5.2008, available at http://​idw-online.​de/​pages/​de/​news259973 (last accessed: 21.8.08; 14:55 h).

These exceptions include, for example, the lectures given by B. Karn (on the history of origin of American green nanotechnology), A. E. Schwarz (on the interweaving of concepts of space in nano and sustainability discourse), N. Stingelin (on ethical aspects), and D. Stark (on economic potential). The abridged versions of the conference papers can be found in the Book of Abstracts, available at http://​www.​empa.​ch/​plugin/​template/​empa/​*/​71662/​---/​l=​1 (last accessed: 21.8.08).

The concept of co-evolution was introduced in [1] by Wiebe Bijker et al. as a way of emphasising the relationship between technology and society as a reciprocal one and of countering claims of non-relatedness or one-sided dominance. The term ‘midstream modulation’ was recently introduced into the nano debate by Eric Fisher et al. [11]. This concept is oriented metaphorically towards upstream and downstream regulation, but differs only minimally in semantic terms, so it seems to me, from the concept and the debate about a co-evolutionary understanding of the development of technology, society and science, as outlined in detail by A. Rip [23].

The quotations are from Chapter 10 (‘The Limits to Growth’) in K. E. Drexler’s Engines of Creation: The Coming Era of Nanotechnology [1986], Oxford 1990. An e-book version is available at http://​www.​e-drexler.​com/​d/​06/​00/​EOC/​EOC_​Chapter_​10.​html (last accessed: 21.8.08); the passages quoted can be found here on pages 8–10.

K. E. Drexler published Unbounding the Future in cooperation with C. Peterson and G. Perg. All are from the ‘Foresight Institute’ (Paolo Alto, California), a non-profit institution founded in 1985 by Drexler and Peterson. The Institute is dedicated to the ‘beneficial implementation of nanotechnology’ in society. The following quotations are from the first chapter (‘Looking Forward’) of the online version, available at http://​www.​foresight.​org/​UTF/​Unbound_​LBW/​chapt_​1.​html (last accessed: 21.8.08).

A. Jamison in a talk entitled ‘Turning Nano green: The Hybrid imagination in action.’ at a workshop of the Nano Ethics Network ‘Toxicological and Environmental Aspects of Nanotechnology’ in Aarhus, 2–3 November 2007.