Nanotech: Money Pit or Moneymaker?

Can nanotechnology deliver on its promise, or is it just a black hole in which investors and governments have poured tens of billions of dollars with little in return?

According to Cientifica, a research firm focused on the market, various governments have spent $18 billion in nanotech research and development. Add in the $6 billion budgeted to be spent in 2006, and nanotech research funding will have reached the same amount in absolute dollar terms as the entire Apollo space program.

But after eight years of public funding, nanotechnology has little more to show the markets than stain-free pants. Terrific as this may be for slobs who want their clothes to look nice, it's not exactly the stuff of history. Yes, chemical giants such as BASF (BF) and Dow Chemical are producing nanomaterials in bulk, but they make up a small fragment of their overall sales.

Eight years into the Apollo program, on the other hand, astronauts had achieved majestic goals such as space flights around the moon. Millions of children watched and dreamed they'd one day do the same. Today, it's hard to imagine children finding a role model in the scientist who invented stink-proof socks.

"Whichever way you look at the numbers, the economic effect of nanotech has so far been nano-sized," according to the Cientifica report, titled "Where Has My Money Gone?" "No wonder critics of nanotech are beginning to ask whether it will ever be worth it."

Also wondering if it's worth it are likely Europe, the U.S. and Japan, which have each contributed between 26% and 30% of the $18 billion in government nanotech funding to date. Judging from their plans to increase funding to record levels this year, officials seem to think it is.

So why, if so much money is going in, are so few nanotech products coming out? Cientifica spoke to officials and researchers around the world and found much of the slowdown in the funding process itself. Funding may be awarded, but it can take months or even years for it to wend through the Byzantine bureaucracies and into the accounts of a research program. This may be good for the legal specialists involved, but it delays the actual science.