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Oil Industry Jumps the Curve with Nanotechnology

In 2003, I wrote the book, The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. Far from being a wide-eyed look at many of the truly futuristic applications of nanotechnology (of which there, in fact, quite a few), the book took a hard-headed, realistic view of how a variety of industries could employ nanotechnology to improve their existing business in the near term. One of the applications I dedicated a good amount of time to in the book was nanosensors.

Well, it has taken the oil and gas industry almost five years to get the message, but earlier this month it was announced that the Advanced Energy Consortium -- which consists of seven prominent oil companies—will be investing $21 million over the next three years to explore how nanosensors can help the industry squeeze more oil from its existing reservoirs. It is money well spent.

At the present time, only about 40% of the oil in reservoirs is actually recovered. If new nanosensors can produce better images of the reservoirs, it is expected that oil companies will be able to increase the amount of fuel that they can extract.

Furthermore, because nanoparticles have unqiue catalytic properties it is expected that much of the oil that currently sticks to the walls in the pores and crevices of reservoirs can also be captured.

It is possible that neither nanosensors or nanoparticles they will deliver real results, but with oil hovering around $100 a barrel even if the technology only increases production by a percentage or two it will more than pay for itself. (And if it doesn’t, I still applaud the industry for “jumping the curve” and exploring how future technologies—enabled by advances in nanotechnology—might benefit their business.)

(Note: In a separate piece of news, it was announced yesterday that J. Craig Venter was one step closer to developing an artificial life form. The implications for the emerging field of synthetic biology -- which is likely to the energy industry—could be enormous.)

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Jack Uldrich is a writer, futurist, public speaker and host of jumpthecurve.net. He is the author of seven books, including Jump the Curve and The Next Big Thing is Really Small: How Nanotechnology Will Change the Future of Your Business. He is also a frequent speaker on future technology and future trends, nanotechnology, innovation, change management and executive leadership to a variety of businesses, industries and non-profit organizations and trade associations.

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