Nanotechnology touted as key to economy

WALKER - Cass County Economic Development Corp.'s featured speaker at Thursday's annual meeting, Jack Uldrich, described nanotechnology as the willful manipulation of atoms and molecules.

It is creating from an atom up, he said.

Nanotechnology can be used to manufacture a product, create energy or provide improved medical treatments, he said. It will make possible computers a million times more powerful than today and much smaller.

This is not just something for the future, he said, citing a process General Electric now uses to create light bulbs a thin layer at a time. It is being used to make synthetic diamonds from carbon as hard as mined diamonds, but at much lower cost.

Self-cleaning, super strong glass is being manufactured. Clothing fabrics, which shed rather than absorb stains, are available now because of nanotechnology, he said.

In medical treatment, nanotechnology will enable doctors to locate hundreds of types of cancer cells in a person's body, kill only those cancer cells, then instruct the body to flush out the dead cells.

Fuel cells and solar cells will replace much of the current existing energy sources, he predicted. With lighter cars being developed, there will be a sky car able to fly, taking cars off the land-based roads. There are vastly more uses, he said.

By 2015, nanotechnology will account for 20 percent of the economy, he said, and there will be 2 million new jobs in this field.

Those communities embracing nanotechnology will not be left behind, said Uldrich. This does not have to mean big cities. The small city of Rushford has obtained $600,000 to develop a center for nanotechnology, he said.

In Cass County, such a center could coordinate educational opportunities with colleges in Brainerd and Bemidji. Future businesses will locate where the trained work force is, he said.

Because of advances he expects in medical treatments through nanotechnology, he said communities need to plan now for people to live much longer and healthier.

There will be more changes to our world in the next 25 years than in the last 100 years, Uldrich said.