Mother of All Inventions

Minds on fire. That's what we need in the US. The kids who rip into math and science, who chew it up and turn it into silk. We must find them and cultivate them.

How to Fire Up U.S. Innovation

We need more hands-on tech education for American children, but we also need to keep attracting the best talent from abroad.

Whether it's the latest tablet computer, electric sports car or other cool new product, Americans get very excited about innovation—and more often than not these innovations are brought to market by engineers working in technology hubs like Silicon Valley.

An innovation engine has many moving parts and all of them have to mesh properly for the engine to run smoothly. In Silicon Valley, and elsewhere in the United States, the engine requires sources of trained professionals (engineers, scientists, business people), sources of capital (venture capitalists, fluid stock markets), and new and existing companies that form a mutually reinforcing ecosystem.

Universities such as Stanford, the University of California at Berkeley and San Jose State supply a continuous flow of trained talent. Venture capital companies line Sand Hill Road in Menlo Park, adjacent to legal firms midwifing the birth of new companies. Like small villages, everyone seems to know everyone else, and individuals move from company to company, or in and out of partnerships.

It is sometimes thought that research in universities or corporate laboratories produces technology that then transfers seamlessly into products and services. But technology doesn't transfer on its own—it is the people who have the knowledge in their heads that do the transferring. One of the keys to Silicon Valley successes is the transfer of professionals into the marketplace and the ability of researchers to start new companies. Universities that allow faculty members to consult a day a week on average seed the process of business innovation, as can be readily recognized by tallying the number of companies started by Stanford or Berkeley faculty—to say nothing of the students who start new companies.

What conditions give rise to innovation and facilitate its transforming effects? Contributing factors include the freedom to pursue ideas, the freedom to fail, and the freedom of access to information in the broadest sense. Occasional business failure in the U.S. is a mark of experience, while in other cultures it may be a permanent scar. Information sharing is generally considered a powerful means towards progress, hence the strong influence that the American university system has had on the economy.

One cannot escape the observation, however, that the incidence of intelligence is uniform in all populations around the world. There are absolutely more smart people outside the U.S. than there are living here. It is in our best interest to attract talent from anywhere in the world to participate in our innovation engine. Even if visitors return to their homelands after attending an American university, we will benefit from their contributions while they were here and, in all likelihood, even after they have returned home.

Despite our well-developed college and post-college system, America simply is not producing enough of our own innovators, and the cause is twofold—a deteriorating K-12 education system and a national culture that does not emphasize the importance of education and the value of engineering and science. The American public focuses more on sports and entertainment figures and less on the scientists and engineers whose innovations make our lives easier, safer, healthier and more productive.

Since 1990, U.S. scientists and engineers have invented the lithium-ion battery that powers all manner of devices from tablet computers to electric cars, developed GPS for civilian use to keep us on the right path to our destinations, and created both remote-controlled military aircraft (drones) to keep our soldiers safe overseas and robots that keep our floors clean at home. But how many among us know the names of the creators of the lithium-ion battery at Bell Laboratories, or the founder of iRobot Corp. and inventor of the Roomba robotic vacuum cleaner now sold around the world?

By contrast, Japan, Spain, Norway, Sweden and many European countries shine a much brighter national spotlight on international science and technology breakthroughs. In northern Spain, the Prince of Asturias Awards for science and technology is a multi-day affair, as is the Japan Prize ceremony for contributions to the progress of science and technology. And of course the Nobel prizes draw international attention and renown.

So what's America to do?

Young people should understand and experience the thrill of science and discovery. We need to help them do real science, not just read about it, through collaborative tools that help mentors and students to interact through programs such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers' tryengineering.org. Children learn best by seeing and doing, not by memorizing.

It's also important to reintroduce to the American culture a higher regard for engineers and scientists. The winners of our National Medals of Science and Technology deserve more public attention. Our successful scientists and engineers should be made more visible and their voices heard more often. Most important, however, is the need to refresh and invigorate interest in and regard for science and engineering in our youth.

School and extracurricular opportunities for young people to work with experienced scientists and engineers should be expanded. Successful examples include the FIRST robotics program established by Dean Kamen (entrepreneur and inventor of the Segway PT), Google's recently launched global Science Fair, and the 50-year partnership between NASA and the National Science Teachers Association. By elevating interest in math and science, we will foster the innovation and ingenuity that will move this nation forward into a better future.

The New Alchemy

Some day, after we find the world's next Einstein, the breakthrough we've been dreaming about will occur. But until our next towering scientific genius arrives, we have to do what we can with what we've got, which is a lot.

Batteries have been around for 200 years. Cars have been on the road for over a century and the first cars were powered with batteries. After two centuries we've learned a few things about the physics and chemistry of batteries. Number one, they have a huge disadvantage that limits their appeal.

What is the limitation? The article explains. In short, batteries hold very little energy. Thus, makers of battery-powered devices have learned to design their devices around the limitations of the batteries rather than expect batteries to improve. Devices are made smaller and smaller, using the technology advances made almost daily in that end of thing. Thus, the improving devices need less and less power to do more and more.

But that strategy will not work with cars. They cannot shrink like semiconductors have. Therefore, we have to change something else. What? One option is to remove the import tariff on Brazilian ethanol. Brazil can meet its internal needs for ethanol and has the capacity to export. Using imported ethanol will lower the cost of the ethanol mixed into our gasoline. At the same time, using imported ethanol will take the pressure off the domestic corn market, which will lower the cost of corn used to feed livestock. Diverting domestic corn production to ethanol production has driven up corn prices and subsequently the food derived from corn-fed livestock.

Meanwhile, if the US were to end its embargo of Cuba, it's likely the island would become an ethanol producer. The ensuing prosperity and the arrival of Americans would destroy the Castro regime. What more could we want?

Beyond Fossil Fuels

Finding New Ways to Fill the Tank

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — Most research on renewable energy has focused on replacing the electricity that now comes from burning coal and natural gas. But the spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the reliance on Middle East imports and the threat of global warming are reminders that oil is also a pressing worry. A lot of problems could be solved with a renewable replacement for oil-based gasoline and diesel in the fuel tank — either a new liquid fuel or a much better battery.

Yet, success in this field is so hard to reliably predict that research has been limited, and even venture capitalists tread lightly. Now the federal government is plunging in, in what the energy secretary, Steven Chu, calls the hunt for miracles.

The work is part of the mission of the new Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy, which is intended to finance high-risk, high-reward projects. It can be compared to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, part of the Pentagon, which spread seed money for projects and incubated a variety of useful technologies, including the Internet.

The goal of this agency, whose budget is $400 million for two years, is to realize profound results — such as tens of millions of motor vehicles that would run 300 miles a day on electricity from clean sources or on liquid fuels from trees and garbage.

One miracle would be a better battery. A pound of gasoline holds about 35 times more energy than a pound of lead-acid batteries and about six times more than lithium-ion batteries. Cars must carry their energy and expend energy to carry it, so the less weight per unit of energy, the better.

David Danielson, an Energy Department official, oversees a program to invest in start-up companies with new approaches to batteries, which is a new strategy; in the early 1990s, the department decided to concentrate all its efforts in lithium-ion research and gave up on other chemistries.

One new technology would allow every car, at modest extra cost, to shut down automatically at each stop sign or red light; when the driver tapped the accelerator, the battery would instantly get it going again. (Hybrids like the Prius do that, but at a substantial cost premium.)

A team at an infant company is using tiny carbon structures called nanotubes to store electricity. The goal is to create something the size of a flashlight battery, holding only about 30 percent as much energy, but able to charge or discharge in two seconds, almost forever.

The technology could form part of the battery pack for a car, cheaply delivering the energy for a jackrabbit start, without damaging conventional chemical batteries, which can store vastly more energy but can only accept or deliver it slowly.

It could also provide a cellphone battery that would charge in five minutes. That kind of battery is called a capacitor.

Joel E. Schindall, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a scientist on the project, pointed out that a capacitor was the original battery. Benjamin Franklin built a set of glass bottles that stored electricity and released it all at once; he called it a battery because, like guns, the bottles fired simultaneously.

But the nanotubes are modern. The walls of the tubes are about 12 atoms thick, and they grow, like leaves of grass, with just enough space between them to provide docking stations for charged particles. So a lot of charged particles can fit into a small space, with very light structures. He compares the device to a book shelf with very thin shelves placed exactly far enough apart to accommodate the books. Because the connection is physical, not chemical, the charged particles can attach and detach almost instantly. The result is a small, light, powerful package.

The project started out with a Ph.D candidate, Riccardo Signorelli, using tweezers to put tiny squares of aluminum into a vacuum chamber and then pumping in a hydrocarbon gas. When heated, the hydrogen burns away and the carbon atoms arrange themselves into tubes. The breakthrough was doing that on a surface that would conduct electricity.

Dr. Signorelli, now with his Ph.D, is chief executive of FastCap Systems, which, with government help, is converting an industrial loft into a factory.

In another M.I.T. lab, Gerbrand Ceder is developing a “materials genome,” using computers to predict the qualities of materials that could be used in batteries, and then fabricating the ones that the computer finds promising. A materials genome would speed the distribution of knowledge about materials and make development of new materials faster, he said, an idea that impresses officials at the Energy Department.

ARPA-E invested $3.2 million in a battery developed with a materials genome in a start-up company, run by Professor Ceder, that is exploring magnesium.

In batteries today, whether they are lithium-ion or old-fashioned lead-acid, an atom shuttles between the positive and negative terminal, carrying a single electron, as the battery charges and discharges. But a magnesium atom would carry two electrons, so a battery storing a given amount of energy could be nearly halved in size and weight.

Another approach being financed by ARPA-E is to convert the tremendous amount of energy stored by plants and trees to a car fuel.

Scientists are tantalized by plants and trees because they store far more energy than is consumed by cars, trucks, trains and planes, and they do it by taking carbon out of the atmosphere. But they do not give that energy back in an easy-to-use form, at least not without taking millions of years to turn into oil. Instead, they make energy-bearing sugars in a form called cellulose, which forms the sinew or skeleton of the plant.

Cellulose is hard to break down. “Cotton is pure cellulose,” said Eric Toone, who is Mr. Danielson’s counterpart for biofuels at the Energy Department. “When you take your cotton shirt and put it in a washing machine, it still comes out as a cotton shirt.”

Engineers have tried using steam, acids and enzymes to break cellulose into useful sugars. The enzymes are usually made by gene-modified bacteria or fungi and resemble the saliva of termites, which is notoriously good at dissolving cellulose. So far, none are commercial, but with Energy Department help, some researchers are trying new methods.

Take Michael Raab, whose start-up, Agrivida, in Medford, Mass., is tinkering with the genes of grass and sorghum to develop plants that make the enzymes internally and digest their own cellulose on cue, leaving behind a murky brown concoction of sugars that can be converted into gasoline, diesel or jet fuel.

Deep inside their cells, his plants produce a smooth, nonreactive molecule, but when the plant is exposed to heat and a change in acidity, the molecule breaks open, like a beer bottle smashed against the bar. The jagged edges are enzymes. They rip apart cell walls and leave fragments that are useful sugars.

Sugars — both the common kind that comes in paper packets for coffee and some more exotic types — can be converted by yeast into ethanol, a technology known since ancient times. Or they can be fed to gene-altered bacteria that will excrete diesel or gasoline components. Or they can be converted chemically, with catalysts.

All these steps, including the tricky one of recovering sugar from cellulose, can be done already, but not cheaply enough to produce tens of billions of gallons a year.

The Energy Department is putting $4.6 million into Agrivida, and similar sums into other start-up firms, many of them intent on finding gasoline substitutes. It is, said one department official, “real science fiction stuff,” ideas promising enough to attract a few million dollars for research but not quite promising enough to draw the private capital required for small-scale production.