Remarks by Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham

Thank you, Jim (Decker), for that generous introduction and for the work you do in our Office of Science.

I hardly need to remind this audience of how critical the Office of Science is to our Department. Jim and Ray Orbach, the director of that office, manage it with great skill and tremendous enthusiasm – and that enthusiasm is truly infectious. Thanks again, Jim, for your efforts.

Let me begin by welcoming everyone to this summit on Nanoscale Science and our Energy Future.

I want to give a special welcome to the directors of our national laboratories who are with us Praveen Chaudhari, Herman Grunder, Paul Robinson, Jeff Wadsworth, and Pier Oddone, Deputy Director of the Berkeley Lab. Each of you manages a national asset that will help define the future of science and technology for all of us. I certainly appreciate your willingness to participate in this summit on the future of one important aspect of that science.

Your labs also helped organize this event so let me thank you for that as well as Pat Dehmer, known to many of us as head of our Basic Energy Sciences division, Jim Roberto from Oak Ridge Lab, and everyone who worked so hard to create this summit on nanoscale science.

You’ve created a remarkable event.

With us today are industry leaders in the field of nanotechnology, people who are now using the fruits of research in this arena to create new materials, new products of every sort, and, indeed, entirely new industries.

Also joining us are some of the most outstanding researchers from laboratories and from universities. These scientists are laying the foundation for further progress in basic research aimed at understanding matter and how it might be controlled.

Later in the day we will hear from Richard Smalley, a Nobel Prize winner, and a pioneer in nanoscale science research.

We’ll also be joined by policy makers throughout government, including Representative Wamp, and Jack Marburger, both of whom you will hear from this morning.

So, I am truly pleased that this event has gotten so much attention and has attracted such talent.

After joining President Bush and others including some of you in this room for the signing of the nanotechnology authorization bill, I asked Ray Orbach to convene a summit on nanoscale science, because it seemed clear that as we entered the 21^st century, one of the most important areas for research and development especially for the energy and security missions of the Energy Department was going to be nanotechnology.

So it makes sense in the early years of this century and in the early years of this science to bring together the best minds from industry, science, and government to help shape the future of this research.

This type of summit is important and, therefore, should not be a one-time event. I look forward to making this an annual event.

The reason is simple. As policymakers look at the range of issues surrounding nanotechnology, we need the thoughtful contributions we can only get from brainstorming sessions like this one.

Major questions such as the ethical and safety implications of advanced nanoscience research and the proper role of government in this research should be examined by groups such as this on a regular basis if we are to see this technology flourish.

And this Department is committed to seeing that nanoscience does flourish.

We are making a substantial and we think very wise investment in nanoscale science at DOE.

We see it as having virtually unlimited potential to transform the way we produce, deliver, and use energy not to mention its likely effect on medical technology and national security.

When I speak about the promise of nanoscience and the technology it may spawn, I like to review a few of the examples of what the future might bring. Many of these may have the flavor of science fiction.

But we’ve seen our researchers turn fiction into fact so often, you have to believe almost anything is possible.

So imagine if you will …

• 1,000 machines working away, that are small enough to all fit on the period at the end of this sentence.
• Powerful solar cells in roof tiles.
• Siding for houses that provide all the electricity a family needs without dependence on a central power plant
• Supercomputers the size of a grain of sand, or even in the fabric of our clothes.
• Electricity transmission lines made with materials created through nanotechnology with radically improved performance.
• Automobile and truck bodies that are half as heavy but twice as strong.
• An aircraft wing that repairs itself.
• Or, nanosize probes to target disease cell by cell.

The implications of nanotechnology for human health, energy indeed for our way of life can hardly be overstated.

That is why we need to think through this technology at the policy and the technical level in groups like this, and why the Department believes its investment in nanoscience is so important.

Of course, you know as well as I what might be expected from research at the nanoscale.

What I want to stress, however, is that while realizing the far-out promise of nanotechnology, it’s most important not to lose site of the need to take small steps though I hasten to add not nano steps through basic research before we start thinking about how we will employ such revolutionary applications as microscopic supercomputers.

We need the building blocks of fundamental science to know what can reasonably be expected from science at the nanoscale.

So, DOE is taking the lead in nanoscience and in linking the results of basic research to applications in energy-related technologies.

I am glad to see that an interagency report on nanoscience and energy needs, which is being released here at this Summit, recognizes and supports the approach we have taken at DOE.

This approach making sure the fruits of research are available to those who need it defines how the DOE does business.

The Department has chosen a unique set of building blocks to push this science forward they are the five nanoscience centers shared by a number of our DOE national laboratories.

Each center will make its own particular contribution to this science.  They will specialize, but there are some common themes.

First, each is being built next to a light source or similar facility at our labs, giving researchers in nanoscience access to state-of-the-art machines to support their work.

Next, by bringing chemists together with physicists, materials scientists, biologists, computer specialists, and many more, DOE’s nano centers will make possible, as never before, an extraordinary level of interdisciplinary research. The results will be a revolution in the way science is done.

And third, by providing the tools for research along with an atmosphere and culture that demands that traditional stove-piped disciplines become a thing of the past, our nano centers will help educate a new generation of young scientists. They will be the first, although certainly not the last, to receive the truly interdisciplinary training that is needed for the success of nanotechnology.

Building intellectual capital like that is probably the most important long-term investment we can make at the Department of Energy.

Indeed, we see these centers as transformational in many ways. They’ll change the way research is done, they’ll educate the next generation into a kind of science that transcends the established disciplines, and, by doing all this, I trust they will help the science transform our energy future as well.

We expect our nano center at Oak Ridge to be up and running by September 2006, followed in December by the center at the Berkeley lab. In 2007 we will bring the facilities at Sandia, Los Alamos, and Argonne on line, and in early 2008 Brookhaven’s center will be operational.

Each has received widespread support from the surrounding communities.   Illinois, for example, is providing $36 million for the building at Argonne, and DOE is funding an equal amount for the equipment. 

While these centers are located at Department of Energy labs, they are open to all, including industry.

In fact, a number of companies have already started working with us, looking to supply expertise or equipment. They recognize that the pathway to success of this science runs directly through basic research.

When these Centers are completed and running they will be the premier institutions for nanoscale research in the U.S, and perhaps the world.

What’s more, the DOE nano science centers at Argonne, Berkeley, Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, Los Alamos and Sandia, will give the United States an enormous global competitive advantage in this new area of research.

Given the potential of nanotechnology, we must not settle for second best in the race to transform the vision of this science into a reality. So I hope that when young researchers here and around the world think about working in this field, they will say to themselves, “The place to be is at one of America’s nanoscience centers.”

I can’t discuss the truly critical role we see these centers playing in the future of nanoscience research without paying a special tribute to the late Iran Thomas.

Iran was the inspired Deputy Director of our office of Basic Energy Sciences at DOE and a leader in materials sciences and engineering. 

His vision of collaborative research shaped the basic idea of these centers and he more than anyone organized the scientific community to help make these centers a reality.

But certainly Iran knew better than anyone that these centers are, ultimately, a means to an end a vital means, but a means nonetheless.

And the end is clear: focused basic research attacking one of the most profound challenges in the world today supplying abundant, clean, and affordable energy to every corner of the globe.

We believe nanoscale science, engineering, and technology can leapfrog these challenges by designing and creating new materials and chemical processes for clean energy.

This can take place in two ways.

First, our nano science centers will explore new materials that can be employed to radically improve existing technology. For example, lubricants that can boost efficiency, or a new style diesel engine block that could radically improve environmental performance.

Second, nano technology may simply revolutionize energy sources not in widespread use today, such as solar energy, by building molecular machines to capture and store the sun’s energy.  

Of course, nanoscale research is a part of the broad science portfolio we have at the Department. Nanoscience supports and is supported by the work we do in other important areas of research.

For example:

Earlier this month, I announced our plans to build the fastest supercomputer in the world that will be open to all users. 

We are making this significant investment in our scientific infrastructure with the expectation that it will yield a wealth of dividends – major research breakthroughs, significant technological innovations, and medical and health advances.

But we are also making this investment because we recognize that supercomputing underpins virtually everything that happens in science today. 

We can use supercomputers to simulate a design for an efficient and environmentally benign coal burning boiler, or a radically improved gas turbine for generating electricity.

Today, in fact, scientists regard the computer not just as a tool to crunch numbers, but as a tool for discovery that is just as important as experimentation.

Our Genomes to Life program offers the truly amazing prospect of developing microbial organisms that actually eat pollution. Genomes to Life is an outgrowth of the Human Genome Project that DOE launched back in the mid 1980s – something for which, I might add, we are seldom given credit.

Using the knowledge gained by the Human Genome Project, we are confident that the Genomes to Life program will perfect genetic techniques to harness microbes to consume pollution, create hydrogen, and absorb carbon dioxide.

We are pursuing the potential of fusion power through the international fusion experiment known as ITER.

If successful, ITER will provide us the final experiment before we move to build a demonstration fusion power plant. 

The Department is the lead agency in the federal government for the physical sciences and we will continue on the cutting edge by improving both ground and space-based explorations of the origins of matter and the universe.

So we are interested in a full range of basic research research that history has clearly shown will advance our national security and our energy future.

And that is the primary reason for us to be here today to think about and help guide the future of one of the most exciting aspects of basic research that can be imagined.

I look forward to the positive developments that will stem from today’s event, as well as to working with all of you as we move this science forward.

I can’t think of a challenge that is more important or more exciting than that of bringing the fruits of nanoscience to bear on the profound energy and security challenges that face this nation and the world.

Thank you for joining in this effort and thank you for joining us in this Summit.