This extensive 2010 report, released by international environmentalist organization Friends of the Earth, surveys many nanotechnology products being researched, developed, or already on the market related to energy production and storage. The authors of the report note that nanotechnology advocates have been promising huge gains in energy generation and storage efficiency and flexibility for many years; for the most part, these gains haven’t been realized. More troubling, according to the authors of the report, are the lack of life cycle analysis of various nanotech products, and “greenwashing” that take the form of claiming great gains in energy conversion in the field while completely ignoring the energy costs that have gone into the making of the products themselves, as well as the environmental risks associated with releasing nanoparticles into the environment.

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Tony Golsby-Smith, CEO of Second Road, a business design and transformation firm, argues in a Harvard Business Review blog entry that companies faced with innovation crisis are often lacking employees capable of thinking about unknown futures, a skillset he associates with degrees in the humanities.

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Article by Christopher Newfield. Read it at the Huffington Post.

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International hourly compensation rates show U.S. workers are not overly paid   U.S. compensation rates are declining at the same time as U.S. manufacturing competitiveness.

Get Ready for China's Innovation Juggernaut

Software patents 'gumming up innovation', warns Google

John Doerr on Energy Innovation: The new energy economy is the mother of all markets (YouTube)



Bill Gates on Energy Innovation: We need more basic research (YouTube)



Andy Grove on Manufacturing and Innovation (Businessweek)

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