ABSTRACT
Nanotechnology has its roots in the science and the engineering of intentionally manipulating matter at the scale of individual atoms, and small groups of atoms. Nanotechnology is a field of almost unbounded promise with clear industrial ambitions. Nanotechnology, clean technology, and geoengineering, span the scale of human ingenuity, from the imperceptibly small to the unimaginably large. Nanotechnology, geoengineering and clean technology may seem strange bedfellows. Certainly nanotechnology and geoengineering have benefitted from the imaginations of science fiction in the growth of their ‘sociotechnical imaginaries’. Nanotechnology has emerged from new technological possibilities associated with the ability to observe and manipulate matter at a inaccessible scale. But some would still argue that it is ‘just chemistry. Nanotechnology and geoengineering have both embedded some of the lessons from past technological controversies about the limits of risk management and cost—benefit analysis especially in its consequentialist flavor.
