There’s been a new kind of market forecast for nanotechnology kicking around lately. Instead of predicting market values in the trillions, the prediction is in the billions. There’s an item on Nanowerk about this new report,

It therefore is quite refreshing to finally see a market report titled “Nanotechnology: A Realistic Market Assessment” that estimates the worldwide sales revenues for nanotechnology to be $26 billion – yes, that’s illion with a b, not a tr – in 2015.

According to this report, the largest nanotechnology segments in 2009 were nanomaterials, with sales reaching $9 billion in 2009. This is expected to grow to more than $19 billion in 2015. Sales of nanotools, meanwhile, will experience high growth. From a total market revenue of $2.6 billion in 2009, the nanotools segment will increase at a 3.3% CAGR to reach a value of $6,812.5 million in 2015.

These numbers seem more realistic given the commentaries and critiques I’ve seen from more knowledgeable business analysts than me. (There’s more about the report and links to it and other related articles at Nanowerk.)

On the same track, I came across an August 10,2010 posting by Dexter Johnson (Nanoclast) on employment figures for the ‘nanotechnology industry’. From the posting ((Nanotech Employment Numbers Remain Inscrutable),

On the one hand, you have the ever-optimistic viewpoint of Mihail C. Roco, a senior adviser for nanotechnology at NSF [National Science Foundation], who helped develop the numbers back in 2000 that estimated that by 2015 2 million workers worldwide, and 800,000 in the US, would be needed to support nanotechnology manufacturing. According to Roco, we’re still on target with estimates that in 2008 there were 160,000 workers in nanotechnology, representing a 25% increase between 2000 and 2008. If that same percentage increase is applied to the years from 2008 to 2015, then you would get 800,000 by 2015 in Roco’s estimates.

As satisfying as it may be to be dead-on accurate with one’s projections, one cannot help be reminded of Upton Sinclair’s quote “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.” If you are given the task of predicting the unpredictable you have to stick to the methodology even when it hardly makes sense.

Dexter is providing commentary on an article by Ann M. Thayer in Chemical and Engineering News, Filling Nanotech Jobs. In the wake of the US National Nanotechnology Initiative’s (NNI) 10th anniversary this year, Thayer unpacks some of the numbers and projections about nanotechnology’s economic impacts. It is sobering. From the article,

Ten years down the road, and with 2015 just over the horizon, it’s clear that the hype has died down and investment momentum has slowed. Although U.S. government nanotech spending under NNI has totaled nearly $12 billion, according to market research firm Lux Research, the recession has further blunted demand for nanomaterials, slowed technology adoption, and reduced its market projections. Many small firms have closed their doors, and some state nanotech initiatives have stalled.

Beyond the likely effect of the economic downturn on employment, efforts to train a nanotech workforce face other uncertainties. The technology has moved into products and manufacturing, but it is still early in its commercial development path. And while it evolves, it must compete for government and investor attention from newer emerging technologies.

Much of the article focuses on educational efforts to support what was intended as a newly emerging and vibrant nanotechnology field. From Thayer’s article,

Reviews of NNI by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science & Technology and others have recommended improving coordination around education and workforce issues. Often near the top of the list is a call for increased participation by the Departments of Labor and Education, agencies new to NNI in 2006, to provide input and help strengthen efforts.

“This should be the next major step,” Roco agrees. “NSF has created a spectrum of methods and models in education, and now these need to be implemented at a larger scale.” He and others in government are counting on the Commerce Department to help assess industry needs and point universities in the right direction.

But the path forward is unclear, in part because the funding environment is in flux. For example, funding that jump-started some of the early nanotech centers, such as NCLT [National Center for Learning & Teaching], has ended, and the centers must recompete or find other ways to sustain their operations.

…

Education, like any business, responds to market needs. Murday [[James S. Murday, associate director in the University of Southern California’s Office of Research Advancement] supposes that nanoscience education could mirror the materials science field, which came together under government investment in the 1960s. “It’s sort of an existence proof in the past 50 years that you don’t have to be bound by the old disciplines,” Murday says. Instead of getting hung up on what nanotech is or isn’t, “maybe we ought to focus on what we really want, which is new products and figuring out how to design our educational system to make the fastest progress,” he suggests. [emphasis mine]

‘Designing an educational system to make the fastest progress’ as per Murday reeks of the Industrial Revolution. After all, the reason for near universal literacy was that industry in the name of progress needed better educated workers. But that’s a side issue.

What this whole discussion brings up is a question of strategy. The easiest comparison for me to make is between the US and Canada. As I’ve noted before (my Aug. 2, 2010 posting), the US has poured a lot money, time, and energy in a very focused nanotechnology strategy, e.g. NNI,  whereas in Canada, the nanotechnology effort has largely been rolled into pre-existing programs.

At this point, it’s impossible to say if there’s a clear cut right or wrong strategy, as Dexter points out, the people who made and continue to make the projections and decide strategy have a vested interested in being proved right.