Reading reports of government plans for the regulation of nanotechnology sometimes feels like being on death row. The outcome is inevitable, and all you can do is hope that it will be short and painless. The European Commission has been debating regulations for the best part of a decade,and now apparently has been given a deadline of 2011 by the European Parliament to “properly regulate nanotechnology.”

Plastics & Rubber Weekly reports that the Belgian Environment Minister, Paul Magnette proposed five elements that should be included in nanotechnology legislation, including

• A register of nanomaterials used within the EU is established, so regulators can trace the origin of any nanoparticles to their source if they cause health or environmental problems.
• Manufacturers and retailers inform consumers of the presence of nanomaterials in their products
• Regulations provide for risk evaluation and management of nanomaterials at an EU level
• Member states also draft integrated national strategies for nanotechnology risk management, information dissemination and monitoring
• Claims made on labels of products containing nanomaterials are controlled

As with any legislation the devil will be in the detail, and that will determine whether the result is to shift all production of basic nanomaterials out of the EU or simply create a lot of meaningless labels that consumers won’t understand. Unfortunately, that plays into the hands of pressure groups who managed to influence public opinion against all forms of GMOs based on some rather dodgy science, and leaves companies using nanomaterials between a rock and hard place. Do they add a (nano) suffix to ingredients and risk a consumer backlash, or do they simply fudge the definition – many commonly used materials contain quite a range of particle sizes, and so adjusting to the mean size to 100.001nm could easily sidestep any EU legislation.

But the bottom line is that anyone involved in nanomaterials would like the politicians to make their minds up about regulation. Many companies are unwilling to spend large sums on developing technologies and products they may be outlawed or perceived differently by consumers as a result of pending legislation. The sooner that rules are in place the easier it will be to justify developing nanomaterial based products.

French Chemical Companies Protest Falling Nanotech Prices

With confidence in nanomaterials companies falling faster than UK house prices at the moment, France has done what it always does best, a government bail out.

The aid consists of giving €24 million to Arkema, and a further €20 million to a variety of other consortium members, or in the words of the Commission

GENESIS represents a total outlay of €107 million over five years. It will focus on developing nanomaterials based on formulations incorporating carbon nanotubes and copolymers with controlled architecture. These technologies should pave the way for the industrial development of materials with radically new properties in terms of mechanical resistance, thermal or electrical conductivity, or optical characteristics.

So in effect, despite Arkema setting up facilities to produce carbon nanotubes by the to hundreds of tons, they still haven’t found a market for enough of them. The background info from the EU indicates that the French government has spent two years already trying to bail out Arkema.

Knowing the speed at which governmemts move, Arkema must have started demading governmemt handouts even before it opened its CNT pilot plant in early 2006 which indicates that their market confidence must have been close to zero! At least it seems smarter than the US model, where a lack of products, markets and customers usually seems to be reason enough to attempt a $100 million IPO. 

I have seen this in a number of European countries but especially France where there are a number of quite large firms kept afloat by state aid with the rationale that if the government did not fund them then this or that technology would not exist in France.

So what we end up with is a kind of nanotechnology Common Agricultural Policy, where companies are paid to produce things that no one wants and the taxpayer foots the bill. Usually when anyone tries to reform the Common Agricultural Policy French Farmers start burning sheep in the streets of Paris or spraying the European Parliament with manure. Goodness knows what they could do with a few tons of unsold nanotubes – it could certainly stimulate the French toxicology sector!