Enterprise Resilience Management Blog

The Economist and the Evernet

Last month I wrote a post on Ubiquitous Sensors and the Evernet. The "Evernet" is a term I borrowed from my colleague Tom Barnett. The Economist now has an article on what they call the coming wireless revolution ["When Everything Connects," 26 April 2007]. There are still people alive who remember when the term "wireless" referred to what Guglielmo Marconi called wireless telegraphy -- a radio receiver or transceiver. The Economist article begins with a flashback to the time when people would sit around a glowing wood covered "wireless" to hear their favorite entertainment or catch up on the news. Today, of course, the term "wireless" has a completely different meaning. The Economist, although it doesn't use the term, describes the Evernet this way:

"Just as microprocessors have been built into everything in the past few decades, so wireless communications will become part of objects big and small. The possibilities are legion. Gizmos and gadgets will talk to other devices—and be serviced and upgraded from afar. Sensors on buildings and bridges will run them efficiently and ensure they are safe. Wireless systems on farmland will measure temperature and humidity and control irrigation systems. Tags will certify the origins and distribution of food and the authenticity of medicines. Tiny chips on or in people's bodies will send vital signs to clinics to help keep them healthy."

The article identifies the differences between the computer era and the coming wireless era in this way:

"The computing revolution was about information—digitising documents, photographs and records so that they could more easily be manipulated. The wireless-communications revolution is about making digital information about anything available anywhere at almost no cost. No longer tied down by wires and cables, more information about more things will get to the place where it is most valuable. For the moment, the mobile phone is stealing the show. It is evolving from a simple phone into a wallet, keychain, health monitor and navigation device. But as mobile-phone technology matures, even more innovation is taking place in areas of wireless that link things only metres or millimetres apart. For that, thank the cross-breeding of Marconi's radio and the microprocessor."

The first two pieces of the wireless revolution are already in place -- small size and reasonable cost. The third piece -- getting electrical power to these devices -- is in the works claims the article. Once all three pieces are fitted, the revolution will begin.

"Wireless brings countless benefits. ... Devices and objects can be monitored or controlled at a distance. Huge amounts of data that were once impossible or too expensive to collect will become the backbone of entirely new services. Wireless communications should boost productivity just as information technology has. Imagine how wireless communications could change motoring. Carmakers are starting to monitor vehicles so that they know when to replace parts before they fail, based on changes in vibration or temperature. If there is a crash, wireless chips could tell the emergency services where to come, what has happened and if anyone is hurt. Traffic information can be instantaneous and perfectly accurate. They administer tolls based on precise routes. One American firm leases cars to people with bad credit who cannot get a loan, knowing that if payments are missed it can block the ignition and find the car to repossess it. British insurers offer policies with premiums based on precisely when and where a person drives."

This all sounds interesting (to some it may sound too intrusive), but mining and correlating mountains of data may be the long pole in the Evernet tent. Enterra Solutions is working to develop processes that will help launch the wireless revolution by providing ways to sort through mountains of data to find what is important (like failing parts or the presence of a toxic substance), determine who needs that information, and get it to them in near real-time. Where applicable, automated rules will be able to initiate responses that can mitigate potentially harmful consequences much faster than can a human in the loop. This is exactly the kind of innovation that caught Esquire magazine's attention and resulted in an article on The Age of Resilience last December that described the work we hope to foster at the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience.

The Economist article observes that we are still in the gestation phase of the wireless revolution and there are a lot of challenges yet to be worked out.

"Of course, plenty of work will be needed before wireless communications can realise their promise. The first obstacle is novelty. As is usual in the early days of a new industry, all kinds of proprietary systems abound, many of them built from scratch—rather as early computer hackers fiddled with their Altairs in the mid-1970s. Until common standards and protocols emerge for machine-to-machine and wireless sensor communications, costs will be a problem. It is not yet clear who will bang heads together to set standards. Today's mobile-phone businesses may be too busy getting people to talk to bother much about talking machines. Sony Ericsson and Nokia, two giants of the mobile-phone industry, have in recent years sold their machine-to-machine divisions. Mobile operators see the new field as such a small part of their overall business that it gets relegated to the back-burner. That has left an opening for fleet-footed firms from computing, as well as industrial conglomerates, such as Samsung, Philips, Honeywell and Hitachi. Just this week, General Electric's sensing division said it wanted to use wireless sensors in industries as diverse as drugs and petrochemicals. Government will play a crucial role, not least because radio spectrum will be in short supply. That makes it more important than ever that the airwaves are sensibly allocated according to the ability to pay. Special 'reserves' and unlicensed spectrum could be put aside for emerging technologies that lack financial or political clout. And politicians and business people would do well to keep an eye on the health risks of electromagnetic radiation. No serious evidence yet suggests it is a danger—but the nonsense over genetically modified foods shows how much a new technology needs popular approval."

The Economist concludes by raising the specter of privacy violations (both official and criminal). It is an issue with which society must come to grips. As with all innovations, the article notes that no one can honestly predict how this new revolution will affect society. Some of the effects, it notes, will be frightening, while other effects will be simply amazing. The revolution may not be complete for half a century, but it will be an interesting 50 years to watch.

Service as Science

In hard science fields like math and physics, snickers are often heard whenever political "science" or social "science" are mentioned. Those softer sciences are about to be joined by a new discipline "service science." Steve Lohr, writing in the New York Times, reports that a group of large technology companies, universities and professional associations have recently formed "a new organization to support and promote research into ways that technology can increase productivity and innovation in the economy’s service sector." ["New Efforts to Tap Technology to Aid the Service Economy," 28 March 2007]. This new discipline, according to Lohr, blends both hard and soft sciences.

"The creation of the organization, the Service Research and Innovation Initiative ... represents the latest step by technology companies and some universities to promote an emerging field that is being called 'service science.' The early academic programs are a blend of computing, social sciences, engineering and management. The aim of service science is to try to improve productivity and accelerate the development of new offerings in services, which account for about 80 percent of the United States economy and similarly large shares of other Western economies. In the last couple of years, more than three dozen universities in several countries have added service science courses, and the National Science Foundation has begun financing a few service research projects."

Corporations sponsoring the Service Research and Innovation Initiative represent a who's who list of well-known companies: Accenture, Cisco, Computer Sciences, EMC, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, and Xerox. The list of universities from which academic supporters come is also impressive including UCLA, the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, and Arizona State. The new initiative also has an international flavor with the European Commission and the Fraunhofer Institute, a German research organization, having members who serve on the advisory committee. Finally, practitioners are represented by the Technology Professional Services Association and the Service and Support Professionals Association, with the latter organization providing the executive director of the new initiative, Thomas W. Pridham.

"J. B. Wood, the chief executive of both the longstanding professional groups, said the purpose of the new effort was to have a neutral, nonprofit professional organization around which to build a community of common interest. 'The investment in research by companies and the government has driven so much innovation on the hardware side of information technology,' Mr. Wood said. 'We think there is a similar opportunity in services.' The new organization, according to Mr. Pridham, will provide a forum for collaboration to help set research priorities, pool corporate funds to support academic programs, and advise the government on preferred targets of basic research."

The Service Research and Innovation Initiative is trying to do for "service science" what I hope the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience does for global resilience. I would love to have the corporate backing the initiative enjoys. I guess you could call it funding envy. I anticipate that some of the findings generated by the initiative will, in fact, find a rightful place in helping make the global economy more resilient. The U.S. and much of the rest of the developed world have been living with a service economy for a number of years -- even as they decry the loss of manufacturing jobs. Hopefully, the new Initiative will help the education system understand what skills students need to be taught before they enter the work force and help U.S. workers learn to flourish in this economy.

Far-out Ideas for Saving the World

March madness generally applies to the NCAA basketball tournament, but last week Associated Press writer Seth Borenstein made me wonder if the madness isn't spreading. Borenstein wrote an article, picked up by a lot of papers, that described several of the more far-out ideas being proposed to cope with global warming ["Using Smoke, Mirrors, and Faux Trees to Tackle Global Warming," 15 March 2007].

"Crazy-sounding ideas for saving the planet are getting a serious look from top scientists, a sign of their fears about global warming and the desire for an insurance policy in case things get worse. How crazy? There's the man-made 'volcano' that shoots gigatons of sulfur high into the air. The space 'sun shade' made of trillions of little reflectors between Earth and sun, slightly lowering the planet's temperature. The forest of ugly artificial 'trees' that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. And the 'Geritol solution' in which iron dust is dumped into the ocean."

Besides being "crazy," these ideas are also very expensive to implement, especially since no one is sure they will actually work or what unintended consequences could arise if they were implemented. Borenstein reports that critics are worried that if such ideas are taken seriously people will see them as the silver bullet solution and put off reducing harmful carbon emissions. Borenstein describes four ideas that are being taken more seriously than others. The first Borenstein calls the Geritol solution:

"A private company is already carrying out this plan. Some scientists call it promising while others worry about the ecological fallout. Planktos Inc. of Foster City, Calif., last week launched its ship, the Weatherbird II, on a trip to the Pacific Ocean to dump 50 tons of iron dust. The iron should grow plankton, part of an algae bloom that will drink up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. The idea of seeding the ocean with iron to beef up a natural plankton and algae system has been tried on a small scale several times since 1990. It has both succeeded and failed. Planktos chief executive officer Russ George said his ship will try it on a larger scale, dumping a slurry of water and red iron dust from a hose into the sea. 'It makes a 25-foot swath of bright red for a very short period of time,' George said. The concept gained some credibility when it was mentioned in the 2001 report by the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which cited it as a possible way to attack carbon emissions. Small experiments 'showed unequivocally that there was a biological response to the addition of the iron,' the climate report said. Plankton used the iron to photosynthesize, extract greenhouse gases from the air, and grow rapidly. It forms a thick green soup of all sorts of carbon dioxide-sucking algae, which sea life feast on, and the carbon drops into the ocean. However, the international climate report also cautioned about 'the ecological consequences of large-scale fertilization of the ocean.' Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, said large-scale ocean seeding could change the crucial temperature difference between the sea surface and deeper waters and have a dramatic effect on marine life. [Ralph] Cicerone, a climate scientist who is president of the National Academy of Sciences and advocate for more geoengineering research, called the Geritol solution promising. However, he noted that such actions by a company, or country, can have worldwide effects. George, Planktos' CEO, said his company consulted with governments around the world and is only following previous scientific research. He said his firm will be dropping the iron in open international seas so he needs no permits. Most important, he said, is that it's such a small amount of iron compared to the ocean volume that it poses no threat. He said it's unfair to lump his plan in with geoengineering, saying his company is just trying to restore the ocean to 'a more ecologically normal and balanced state.' 'We're a green solution,' George said. Planktos officials say that for every ton of iron used, 100,000 tons of carbon will be pulled into the ocean. Eventually, if this first large-scale test works, George hopes to remove 3 billion tons of carbon from the Earth's atmosphere, half of what's needed. Some scientists say that's overstated. Planktos' efforts are financed by companies and individuals who buy carbon credits to offset their use of fossil fuels."

Borenstein points out that billionaire Richard Branson has offered a $25 million prize to the first feasible technology to reduce carbon dioxide levels in the air. That should stimulate more interest in this subject. Borenstein describes another carbon reducing idea that hopes to be in the running. He calls them Artificial trees:

"Scientifically, it's known as 'air capture.' But the instruments being used have been dubbed "artificial trees" - even though these devices are about as treelike as a radiator on a stick. They are designed to mimic the role of trees in using carbon dioxide, but early renderings show them looking more like the creation of a tinkering engineer with lots of steel. Nearly a decade ago, Columbia University professor Klaus Lackner, hit on an idea for his then-middle school daughter's science fair project: Create air filters that grab carbon dioxide from the air using chemical absorbers and then compress the carbon dioxide into a liquid or compressed gas that can be shipped elsewhere. When his daughter was able to do it on a tiny scale, Lackner decided to look at doing it globally. Newly inspired by the $25 million prize offered by Richard Branson, Lackner has fine-tuned the idea. He wants to develop a large filter that would absorb carbon dioxide from the air. Another chemical reaction would take the carbon from the absorbent material, and then a third process would change that greenhouse gas into a form that could be disposed of. It would take wind and a lot of energy to power the air capture devices. They would stand tall like cell phone towers on steroids, reaching about 200 feet high with various-sized square filters at the top. Lackner envisions perhaps placing 100,000 of them near wind energy turbines. Even if each filter was only the size of a television, it could remove about 25 tons of carbon dioxide a year, which is about how much one American produces annually, Lackner said. The captured carbon dioxide would be changed into a liquid or gas that can be piped away from the air capture devices. Disposal might be the biggest cost, Lackner said. Disposal of carbon dioxide, including that from fossil fuel plant emissions, is a major issue of scientific and technological research called sequestration. The idea is to bury it underground, often in old oil wells or deep below the sea floor. The Bush Administration, which doesn't like many geoengineering ideas is spending hundreds of millions of dollars on carbon sequestration, but mostly for power plant emissions.

There's a big difference between 100,000 artificial trees (which some designer could undoubtedly make aesthetically pleasing) and the 300+ million needed to make the U.S. carbon neutral. Still, as an alternative to buying carbon credits, capturing and sequestering carbon emissions does have some appeal. The next two ideas discussed by Borenstein deal with counteracting global warming by cooling the earth. The first he calls the Man-made volcano:

"When Mount Pinatubo erupted 16 years ago in the Philippines it cooled the Earth for about a year because the sulfate particles in the upper atmosphere reflected some sunlight. Several leading scientists, from Nobel Laureate Paul Crutzen to the late nuclear cold warrior Edward Teller, have proposed doing the same artificially to offset global warming. Using jet engines, cannons or balloons to get sulfates in the air, humans could reduce the solar heat, and only increase current sulfur pollution by a small percentage, said Tom Wigley of the National Center for Atmospheric Research. 'It's an issue of the lesser of two evils,' he said. Scientists at the Center for Atmospheric Research put the idea into a computer climate model. The results aren't particularly cheap or promising, said NCAR scientist Caspar Ammann. It would take tens of thousands of tons of sulfate to be injected into the air each month, he said. 'From a practical point of view, it's completely ridiculous,' Amman said. 'Instead of investing so much into this, it would be much easier to cut down on the initial problem.' Both this technique and the [next idea to be described the] solar umbrella while reducing heating, wouldn't reduce carbon dioxide. So they wouldn't counter a dramatic increase in the acidity of the world's oceans, which happens with global warming, scientists said. It harms sea life, especially coral reefs. Despite that, Calgary's David Keith is working on tweaking the concept. He wants to find a more efficient chemical to inject into the atmosphere in case of emergency."

Many environmentalists argue that we are already in an emergency, but few of them would argue pumping chemicals into the atmosphere sounds like a good idea. The second cooling idea, that Borenstein calls the Solar Umbrella, doesn't sound any more practical.

"For far-out concepts, it's hard to beat Roger Angel's. Last fall, the University of Arizona astronomer proposed what he called a 'sun shade.' It would be a cloud of small Frisbee-like spaceships that go between Earth and the sun and act as an umbrella, reducing heat from the sun. 'It really is just like turning down the knob by 2 percent of what's coming from the sun,' he said. The science for the ships, the rocketry to launch them, and the materials to make the shade are all doable, Angel said. These nearly flat discs would each weigh less than an ounce and measure about a yard wide with three tab-like 'ears' that are controllers sticking out just a few inches. About 800,000 of these would be stacked into each rocket launch. It would take 16 trillion of them - that's million million - so there would be 20 million launches of rockets. All told, Angel figures 20 million tons of material to make the discs that together form the solar umbrella. And then there's the cost: at least $4 trillion over 30 years, probably more. 'I compare it with sending men to Mars.I think they're both projects on the same scale,' Angel said. 'Given the danger to Earth, I think this project might warrant some fraction of the consideration of sending people to Mars.'"

I assume Angel also has a multi-trillion dollar plan for removing the solar umbrella if the earth starts entering another ice age! Borenstein obviously selected these particular ideas because they were proposed by credible people but sound outlandish. It's easy to make light of "out there" ideas, but they are dealing with a serious subject and the people offering their ideas understand they are making themselves a subject of ridicule. That's takes a great deal of courage, especially if you're a legitimate scientist. Those are the kind of people we are looking for to get involved with the Institute of Advanced Technologies for Global Resilience. If you're interested go to the Web site and learn more.

The Watt-com Era

I recently posted a blog about the surge of coal-fired power plants being constructed in the U.S. (Coal Rush in U.S. as Europe Gets Greener). In that post I wrote: "Many pundits argue that a green enterprise sector will eventually emerge and that sector will create jobs, raise awareness, improve efficiency, and make environmentalism not only a priority but a reality -- and a profitable one. ... This is an area where the innovators will rule and the world will win. I'm optimistic that we'll eventually meet the challenge." Now comes word that Silicon Valley is getting involved in a big way ["Start-Up Fervor Shifts to Energy in Silicon Valley," by Matt Richtel, New York Times, 13 March 2007]. Richtel writes:

"Silicon Valley’s dot-com era may be giving way to the watt-com era. Out of the ashes of the Internet bust, many technology veterans have regrouped and found a new mission in alternative energy: developing wind power, solar panels, ethanol plants and hydrogen-powered cars. It is no secret that venture capitalists have begun pouring billions into energy-related start-ups with names like SunPower, Nanosolar and Lilliputian Systems. But that interest is now spilling over to many others in Silicon Valley — lawyers, accountants, recruiters and publicists, all developing energy-oriented practices to cater to the cause. The best and the brightest from leading business schools are pelting energy start-ups with résumés. And, of course, there are entrepreneurs from all backgrounds — but especially former dot-commers — who express a sense of wonder and purpose at the thought of transforming the $1 trillion domestic energy market while saving the planet."

This is good news for everyone. The country -- the globe -- will become much more resilient as a result of bright people and market forces getting involved in environmental issues. It's the kind of the eclectic group of people we hope will get involved with the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience. The one cautionary note made in Richtel's article is that false steps, resulting from over-exuberance and false hope, could cause the growing enthusiasm for environmentalism to collapse if such missteps result in huge monetary losses.

"Andrew Beebe, one of the remade Internet entrepreneurs, ... said the Valley’s potential to generate change was vast. But he cautioned that a frenzy was mounting, the kind that could lead to overinvestment and poorly thought-out plans. 'We’ve started to see some of the bad side of the bubble activity starting to brew,' Mr. Beebe said. The energy boomlet is part of a broader rebound that is benefiting all kinds of start-ups, including plenty that are focused on the Web. But for many in Silicon Valley, high tech has given way to 'clean tech,' the shorthand term for innovations that are energy-efficient and environmentally friendly. Less fashionable is 'green,' a word that suggests a greater interest in the environment than in profit. The similarities to past booms are obvious, but the Valley has always run in cycles. It is a kind of renewable gold rush, a wealth- and technology-creating principle that is always looking for something around which to organize."

Profits and environmentalism may seem like strange bedfellows, but pragmatism is almost always the best approach to problems. It's the only approach that can draw together people from both sides. Zealots may decry such accommodations and compromises, but they risk cutting off their noses to spite their faces. The fact that this may be a cyclical short-term venture capital interest shouldn't raise concerns. Everything runs in cycles. Getting venture capitalists and technologists interested in environmental issues is great. Eventually that interest will pay off in inventions, processes, and approaches that hold great promise. As those innovations are implemented and mature, venture capitalists' interest will wane as they look for the "next big thing." In their wake, however, they will have left a sustainable legacy that helps the world. Does this all have a chance of working? Richtel thinks it does:

"The energy sector is not so distant from other Silicon Valley specialties as it might appear, say those involved in the new wave of start-ups. The same silicon used to make computer chips converts sunlight into electricity on solar panels, while the bioscience used to make new drugs can be employed to develop better ethanol processing. More broadly, the participants here say their whole approach to building new companies and industries is easily transferable to the energy world. But some wonder whether this is just an echo of the excessive optimism of the Internet boom. And even those most involved in the trend say the size of the market opportunity in energy is matched by immense hurdles. ... This time around, entrepreneurs say they are not expecting such quick returns. In the Internet boom, the mantra was to change the world and get rich quick. This time, given the size and scope of the energy market, the idea is to change the world and get even richer — but somewhat more slowly. Those drawn to the alternative-energy industry say that they need time to understand the energy technology, and to turn ideas into solid companies. After all, in contrast to the Internet boom, this time the companies will need actual manufactured products and customers. 'There are real business models and real products to be sold — established markets and growing economics,' said George Basile, who has a doctorate in biophysics from the University of California, Berkeley and specializes in energy issues."

The fact that an eco-friendly business sector is slowly emerging should bring hope to even the most jaded environmentalist. If a sustainable eco-friendly commercial sector can be developed, it won't matter if opportunists eventually look elsewhere for profits. Are there opportunists? Of course there are!

"The sudden interest of lawyers, accountants and other members of the wider Valley ecosystem strikes some as opportunistic. 'There’s a large amount of bandwagon-jumping right now,' said Mark Hampton, chief executive of Blanc & Otus, a technology-oriented public relations firm whose clients have included TiVo, Sybase and Compaq. Still, he understands the interest of relative newcomers: 'There’s a huge opportunity.' They are all, plainly, following the money. In the first three quarters of 2006, venture capital firms put $474 million into a broad range of Silicon Valley start-ups in energy storage, generation and efficiency, according to Cleantech Venture Network, an industry trade group. Energy was by far the fastest-growing area of interest, and the amount was on par with what was put into telecommunications and biotechnology. Yet the amount of money involved is still relatively small compared with the boom years. Over all, venture funding last year was still less than a third of the nearly $34 billion venture capitalists invested in the region in 2000, the peak of the bubble, according to the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy, based in Palo Alto."

Entrepreneurs will always follow the money, but their ventures will be sustained by both traditional business people and true believers. Richtel notes, for example, "just as the Internet promised to decentralize computing and put control in the hands of users, the Silicon Valley version of energy innovation intends to decentralize the industry by making power generation more local — like solar panels on rooftops." The advent of the Watt-com Era is a good thing and those individuals who Richtel interviewed believe we will start seeing its benefits within the next decade.

Boron Fusion

Recently I posted a blog about futurist Stewart Brand's belief that environmentalists would come to embrace nuclear power over the coming decades [Natural or Manmade Environmentalism?]. The biggest challenge with nuclear power is how to deal with radioactive waste. One answer could be a fusion reactor that uses non-radioactive boron. Skeptics might think this sounds a lot like the promise of cold fusion, but there have been some successes that show this is a promising path to pursue. The U.S. Navy, however, recently shutdown the program ["Fighting for Fusion: Why the U.S. Isn't Funding a Promising Energy Technology," by William Matthews, Defense News, 5 March 2007]. Matthews' article discusses the work of physicist Robert Bussard, whose work was quietly funded by the U.S. Navy for eleven years. His work was showing progress when the plug was pulled.

"On Nov. 11, 2005, the day his small fusion reactor exploded in a shower of sparks and metal fragments, even physicist Robert Bussard didn’t know what he had achieved. ... Bussard’s research [involved] ... a small project with a very large goal: deriving usable energy from controlled nuclear fusion. Funding ran out at the end of 2005 and Bussard was supposed to spend the tail end of the year shutting down his lab. He kept postponing that in an effort to finish a final set of experiments. He completed low-power tests in September and October and began high-power testing of the reactor in November. After four tests Nov. 9 and 10, an electromagnetic coil short-circuited as electricity surged through it, 'vaporizing' part of his reactor, Bussard said, and bringing his tests to an end. 'The following Monday, we started to tear the lab down. Nobody had time to reduce the data that was stored on the computer. It wasn’t until early December that we reduced the data and looked at it and realized what we had done,' he said. Bussard said he and his small team of scientists had proven that nuclear fusion can be harnessed as a usable source of cheap, clean energy."

According to Matthews, Bussard, who is aging and in ill health, claims he has been unable to generate interest in reviving his work in no small part because "the U.S. Energy Department has a competing project, and has spent five decades and $18 billion on an as-yet-unsuccessful effort to solve the fusion puzzle." To be fair, skeptics always become wary anytime someone claims to have solved a problem that thousands of other very smart people have failed to solve. Generally, if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. The debacle with cold fusion still lingers in memories of most scientists. This may be different, however. Don Gay, a former Navy electronics engineer who helped keep Bussard's project alive, and others insist that Bussard truly has solved the fusion puzzle. This is not Bussard's first innovative foray.

"In 1960, he developed — on paper — the Bussard ramjet, an engine designed to power space vehicles by collecting hydrogen atoms from the near-vacuum of space and feeding them into a fusion reactor. His idea was the basis for the 'Bussard collectors' that powered the fictional space ships in the 1960s television series 'Star Trek.' A decade later, Bussard served as assistant director of the Thermonuclear Reaction Division of the now defunct U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. He also worked for U.S. government nuclear laboratories at Los Alamos, N.M., and Oak Ridge, Tenn., and for TRW Systems. Along the way, Bussard founded his own small company, Energy Matter Conversion Corp. — EMC2 — to pursue research into fusion. Bussard aims to use fusion to produce cheap, inexhaustible, clean energy. Unlike other forms of nuclear energy, including other methods of fusion, Bussard’s process does not produce radioactivity."

Honestly, that would sound too good to be true had not Bussard's experiments shown such promise. Here is how the process works:

"His fuel of choice is one of the earth's most common and least exotic elements: boron. It can be scooped from the Mojave Desert in California, possibly even extracted from sea water. Boron is used in the production of hundreds of products as diverse as flame retardants, electronic flat panel displays and eye drops. It's so common that no country, company or individual could corner the market on the fuel supply, Gay said. The process Bussard hopes to perfect would use boron-11, the most common form of the element. Bussard says his experiments — which achieved fusion with deuterium, not boron — in November 2005 proved that the boron process will work. The boron reactor would be similar to, but more powerful than, the reactor that blew up in 2005. Bussard's reactor design is built upon six shiny metal rings joined to form a cube — one ring per side. Each ring, about a yard in diameter, contain copper wires wound into an electromagnet. The reactor operates inside a vacuum chamber. When energized, the cube of electromagnets creates a magnetic sphere into which electrons are injected. The magnetic field squeezes the electrons into a dense ball at the reactor’s core, creating a highly negatively charged area. To begin the reaction, boron-11 nuclei and protons are injected into the cube. Because of their positive charge, they accelerate to the center of the electron ball. Most of them sail through the center of the core and on toward the opposite side of the reactor. But the negative charge of the electron ball pulls them back to the center. The process repeats, perhaps thousands of times, until the boron nucleus and a proton collide with enough force to fuse. That fusion turns boron-11 into highly energetic carbon-12, which promptly splits into a helium nucleus and a beryllium nucleus. The beryllium then splits into two more helium nuclei. The result is 'three helium nuclei, each having almost three million electron volts of energy,' according to Gay, who has written a paper explaining Bussard's research in layman's terms. The force of splitting flings the helium nuclei out from the center of the reactor toward an electrical grid, where their energy would force electrons to flow — electricity. This direct conversion process is extraordinarily efficient. About 95 percent of the fission energy is turned into electricity, Gay said."

According to Matthews, Bussard's work might have continued had he earlier worked out a troubling problem -- "too many electrons were somehow escaping from his reactor core." Those electrons were sorely missed. Because they escaped, too few fusion reactions took place to result in a net positive output of power. Just before funding ran out, however, Bussard claims to have solved the problem.

"With funds running out, 'we banged it together as quickly as we could,' [Bussard said] and began testing in September. Instantly, Bussard saw 'impressive and startling results.' Later analysis would show that the rate of fusion was 100,000 times higher than in previous tests. 'We got four tests out of it that showed conclusively that we had solved the electron loss problem,' he said. That ended on Nov. 11, when the short circuit 'blew the machine apart,' Bussard said. But Bussard is convinced he had built a reactor that could produce more power than it would consume, and had found a way, at long last, to harness fusion as an energy source."

Here's the rub. A number of DOE scientists say the process can't possibly work. Bussard counters, "There are only about five people in the United States who understand this well enough to comment on it." Unfortunately, the "you're not smart enough to understand" apology has historically been used to stifle debate and quiet critics. I'm not a nuclear power expert, but I do know that good ideas deserve a full airing. If Bussard's physics are correct, they can surely be openly debated and tested. The International Academy of Science must agree, they awarded Bussard’s work their 2006 outstanding technology of the year award. "The academy called his fusion reactor 'a revolutionary radiation-free fusion process that could change the world as we know it today." Matthews notes, "'Could' is a key word."

"Bussard may have proven that his process can use controlled fusion to produce more energy than it consumes, but he did not achieve sustained fusion or non-radioactive fusion, nor did he actually produce usable electricity. That will require more time and more money, he said.

Discussing this kind of potential solution is the sort of activity we envision for the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience, but as Bussard notes, actually pursuing the idea will cost money -- lots of it.

"'From the beginning, we were always funded at one-eighth or one-tenth of what we really needed,' Bussard said. As a result, Bussard built tiny reactors. And because his reactors were small and his money was limited, Bussard had neither space nor funds to build cooling systems. Instead, to keep his equipment from overheating, he conducted his experiments using brief bursts of electricity to power the electromagnets at the heart of his reactors. Tests lasted 'fractions of milliseconds,' according to Gay. But actually, that's 'a long time from a nuclear perspective,' he said. Also because of power constraints, Bussard conducted his experiments by fusing deuterium rather than his preferred boron-11. Unlike boron, deuterium fusion produces neutron radiation. Bussard explained his choice: 'You need a lot of energy to cause fusion.' The requirement for 'boron fusion is very large — 200,000 volts. Deuterium takes a tenth that much.' Given the physical limitations of his small reactors and the fiscal limitations of his budget, 'It's much easier to work with deuterium,' Bussard said. Now that he has shown that controlled deuterium fusion is possible, it is simply a matter of building bigger reactors with bigger power supplies and cooling systems to demonstrate sustained boron fusion, he said. Bussard said his next step is to build a new reactor to replace the one destroyed in 2005. Ideally, he’d like to build two and use them to demonstrate to other scientists beyond doubt that his process works. For that, he says he needs about $2 million. To build a full-size reactor, Bussard said he needs about $200 million. 'We’ve solved the physics; now it's time for engineering development,' Bussard said. That means developing special reactor hardware, such as high-voltage power supplies, special transformers and switches that work in timeframes of sub-milliseconds. Some of that work may be challenging, 'but you don’t have to discover new things,' Bussard said."

Matthew concludes his article noting that finding money to continue Bussard's work is difficult. Bussard's supporters are fervent, noting that if Bussard is correct, the upside payoff is enormous. They worry that other countries will see the value and fund (or steal) Bussard's work and develop boron fusion for themselves. If Bussard's idea does prove correct, Brand's prediction that environmentalists will come to embrace nuclear power will surely come true.

Global Warming and Resilience

As most people are aware, an international group of climate scientists released a report last month that (for most people) settled the issue of whether global warming is real. It is. The report also concluded that human activities have played a significant role in causing it. As I said, not everyone's convinced. The American Enterprise Institute is offering money to anyone who can poke holes in the report, but their efforts are bucking the overwhelming evidence of what is happening around the world. Then there's the University of Georgia economics professor, David Lee, who like many naysayers offer red herring arguments on the subject ["Cars improved the air ... that's no bull," The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, 27 February 2007]. Lee writes:

"The motto of all environmentalists should be 'Thank goodness for the internal combustion engine.' The abuse heaped on the internal combustion engine by environmentalists was never justified. But a recent story on cow flatulence in the British newspaper, The Independent, makes the environmental benefits from gasoline-powered engines even more obvious. Based on a recent study by the Food and Agricultural Organization, The Independent reports that 'livestock are responsible for 18 percent of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming, more than cars, planes and all other forms of transport put together.' move from the power provided by animals to that provided by gasoline had greatly improved the environment. The emissions that came out of the tailpipes of horses were much more lethal pollutants that those now coming out of the tailpipes of cars. Horse emissions did more than make our town and cities stink; they spread fly-borne diseases and polluted water supplies that killed people at a far greater rate than the pollution from cars and trucks ever have. Photochemical smog is clearly a health risk, but not nearly the health risk of cholera, diphtheria and tetanus that have been largely eliminated with the help of gasoline powered transportation."

To be fair, the good professor does go on to admit that even though internal combustion engines are better than flatulent draft animals they too should give way to more environmentally friendly technologies. Unlike some global warming critics, however, Lee doesn't deny that human activity has helped create an environmental crisis.

Level-headed reporter David Ignatius writes about just how frightening climate change will be if we don't act now to stop the problem from getting worse and what could happen if we don't make our social systems and critical infrastructure more resilient to that change ["The Climate-Change Precipice," Washington Post, 2 March 2007]. Ignatius writes:

"The scientific debate about whether there is a global warming problem is pretty much over. A leading international group of climate scientists reported last month that the evidence for global warming is 'unequivocal' and that the likelihood it is caused by humans is more than 90 percent. Skeptical researchers will continue to question the data, but this isn't a "call both sides for comment" issue anymore. For mainstream science, it's settled. The question now is what to do about global warming. This is a political problem more than a scientific one. The solutions (if we can agree on any) will require political will and imagination -- and also pain.  ... These issues come into focus in a startling new report by futurist Peter Schwartz. He turns the usual discussions upside down: Rather than starting with detailed estimates of climate change (how much temperatures will increase; how much sea levels will rise; what new diseases will be spawned), he looks instead at systems that already are vulnerable to such stresses. What Schwartz discovers with his stress-testing makes climate change even scarier: The world already is precarious; the networks that maintain political and social order already are fragile, especially in urban areas; the dividing line between civilized life and anarchy is frighteningly easy to breach."

I'll return to what Schwartz says, but I want to remind readers that he is basically an optimist. Schwartz believes that humankind can adapt to the changes it has wrought, but he needs to get our attention first. And he does a pretty good job of that.

"'The steady escalation of climate pressure will stretch the resiliency of natural and human systems,' writes Schwartz. 'In short, climate change pushes systems everywhere toward their tipping point.' Schwartz's report, 'Impacts of Climate Change,' was prepared by his consulting group, Global Business Network, for a U.S. government intelligence agency he doesn't identify. The text of the report is available at the online discussion forum PostGlobal (http://www.washingtonpost.com/postglobal). Here's a brief trek through the ravaged landscape Schwartz describes. A first set of disasters waiting to happen involves stressed ecosystems. Human actions -- deforestation, overfarming, rapid urbanization -- have created special vulnerabilities to catastrophic natural events that are likely as the climate changes globally. In an interview, Schwartz cited the example of Haiti, which because of deforestation and loss of topsoil is 'an ecosystem at the edge.' A prolonged drought or a devastating hurricane could tip Haiti over that threshold -- and produce a refugee crisis of tens of thousands of boat people fleeing a devastated country. Or take the problem of rising sea levels: Climate scientists are uncertain how fast the icecaps will melt and the seas will rise. But in Bangladesh, where millions of people live at or near sea level, even a small increase could produce a catastrophe. In a severe monsoon, 60 million to 100 million people could be forced to flee inundated areas, Schwartz warns, producing 'the single greatest humanitarian crisis we have ever seen.'  Lack of water may be as big a problem as flooding. Schwartz notes that more than 700 million people now live in arid or semi-arid areas. Climate change could tip this balance, too, producing severe water shortages and even 'water wars.' Tens of millions of people may become water migrants. The world's feeble political systems can't cope with existing migration patterns, let alone this human tide. And finally, there is the problem of maintaining social order in a stressed world. You don't have to go to Baghdad to see how quickly the social fabric can be shredded; just look at New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. The stresses come in part from rapid urbanization. Schwartz notes that in 1900, one in 20 people lived in cities; today it's about half, and the percentage is rising fast. Without strong and supple governments, this could become a world of vigilantes and militias, desperate to control scarce resources."

Even strong supple governments are not going to be able to keep up. Not only will the skeptics slow them down, but governments are by nature slow. They are, for example, always racing (and losing) to keep policies in line with scientific and technological breakthroughs. Does that mean all is lost? Of course not. The same creative people who keep governments scurrying to make new policy will be those who help us become more resilient to the changes that lie ahead. Government will play a role, but its greatest contribution should be strong leadership that permits a combined public/private effort that easily collaborates across borders. Ignatius concludes:

"The big problems in life aren't the ones that hit you by surprise but the ones you can see coming. That's surely the case with climate change: We can measure it, we can imagine its catastrophic effects. But can we do anything to stop it? If we let ourselves visualize how bad it could get, as Schwartz does in this report, will we make changes that might reduce the disaster? That's the real stress test: It's coming at us. What are we doing about it?"

One of the reasons I worked with the folks in Oak Ridge to establish the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience is because I agree with Ignatius that you can see most problems coming. That means you can study them, debate them, collaborate about solutions to them, and experiment with ideas that emerge from such activities. I bring a certain set of skills with me, but to address the challenges listed by Schwartz, it is going to take a large and eclectic group of people to get involved. Now is the time.

Framework for Developing New Civilian Defense System

Yesterday Enterra Solutions announced that it has established a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Oak Ridge National Laboratory. It took us a year to put this agreement in place and we are excited about what it means. Before discussing those prospects, I have reproduced our press release below:

Enterra Solutions, LLC, and the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) announced today that they will jointly produce a next-generation approach to sense and respond to threats and vulnerabilities from weapons of mass destruction and natural disasters. Through a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), ORNL and Enterra Solutions will connect Enterra's Enterprise Resilience Management Solution to the national laboratory's SensorNet project. Their efforts will produce an enhanced "sense-think-act" capability called ResilienceNet, which is designed to create a 21st century civilian defense infrastructure.

By integrating Enterra Solution's Enterprise Resilience Management methodology into the SensorNet architecture, ResilienceNet will provide a "plug-and-play" trusted service for defense, homeland security and critical infrastructure protection applications. To create ResilienceNet, ORNL and Enterra Solutions will automate rules and policies that govern the interactions between users and the information collected by SensorNet's sensors and intelligent agents. The CRADA is valued at an estimated $5 million over five years.

Enterra's President and CEO Stephen DeAngelis said, "Since the days of the Manhattan Project, Oak Ridge National Lab has been at the center of cutting edge scientific research in the United States, and this agreement brings together Oak Ridge's history of innovation and Enterra's new paradigm for growth and security." DeAngelis further stated, "Our goal is to build ResilienceNet as a structural component of a next-generation civil defense infrastructure by combining Oak Ridge's SensorNet technology with Enterra's Rule Set Automation and Enterra's Enterprise Resilience Management Solution."

"The national security threats we face today require the ability to immediately detect changes in an environment and react in real-time by taking the appropriate measures to neutralize the threat," added Dr. Frank Akers, Associate Laboratory Director for National Security at Oak Ridge. "The research conducted at the Lab and at Enterra will help enterprises in both the public and private sectors do just that."

"This CRADA with Enterra offers ORNL an auspicious opportunity to make its ongoing research into sensor networks and knowledge discovery available to an emerging leader in business and public safety applications," said Bryan Gorman, Oak Ridge's Principal Investigator for the SensorNet CRADA. "We are particularly eager to explore the application of rule set automation to our standards-based SensorNet prototypes."

This CRADA is another way for Enterra and ORNL to collaborate academically and scientifically. In addition to serving as a visiting scientist at ORNL, DeAngelis has recently established, with the Oak Ridge Center for Advanced Studies, an Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience. The Institute will establish a center of gravity for Enterprise Resilience Management and provide the venue for leading chemical, nuclear, biological and information technologists, political scientists and business people to join together to explore approaches to critical issues facing the world.

This CRADA is first big step in establishing a framework for an entirely new civilian defense infrastructure. It puts meat on the bones of the system touched on in the December 2006 Esquire magazine article. Oak Ridge's SensorNet and Enterra's ResilienceNet are separate, but complementary programs. SensorNet is an ORNL research program that addresses technical challenges associated with real-time sensor systems for national security & other large applications. ResilienceNet, on the other hand, is an intelligent, rule-based sense, think, and act application that enables decision support and secure information sharing based on real-time data sources. This CRADA allows ORNL & Enterra to collaborate to enable advanced ResilienceNet applications to interface with SensorNet interoperability standards. Click on the attached picture for a visual depiction of this relationship. The upper part of the chart represents SensorNet. The portion of the chart below the thick black line represents ResilienceNet.

As I noted, this is just the first step towards the development of new civilian defense infrastructure, but it's a big step. It represents not only a fundamental building block but the foundation for such an infrastructure. The work that will be done by ORNL and Enterra Solutions will lead to a system that will help protect U.S. assets and civilian critical infrastructure. It will permit first responders to be alerted more quickly when something is sensed and permit them to respond faster and more effectively.

We are very excited about this development and hope the work moves quickly. That is one reason we mentioned the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience in the press release. We hope our excitement is contagious and motivates others into joining us in helping make America a safer place. 

Anderson Cooper on Rebuilding Critical Infrastructure

CNN's Anderson Cooper recently discussed homeland security on his blog [Does Homeland Security Matter?] Since it is a relatively short post, I reproduce here in full:

"I'll 'fess up. Before I read Stephen Flynn's new book, "Edge of Disaster," I never gave much thought to the issue of homeland security. For me, this issue was all about long lines at the airport, color-coded alerts and forfeited moisturizer. I've always felt safe in America, even after 9/11. And if something's going happen, it's going to happen, right? Nothing I can do about it. Nothing any of us can, I thought, not even the government. Uh, wrong. What Flynn's book showed me (and what tonight's "360" special "Edge of Disaster: Are You Prepared?" will hopefully show you) is that there are simple, concrete things we, as a society, can do to make ourselves safer. The scary thing is, Flynn says we're not doing them. In fact, he says, we actually seem to be making ourselves more vulnerable with each passing year, and not just to terrorism, but to natural disasters of Katrina-like proportions. About a month ago, we embarked on a cross-country journey to see for ourselves what Stephen Flynn was talking about. Among our stops: Philadelphia, Boston, Rhode Island and California. What we found was startling. From coast to coast, the inter-connected foundations of our nation are crumbling: levees, waterways, the electrical power grid that keeps our lights on. Flynn says they could tumble like dominoes in the face of a natural disaster or a terrorist assault. By allowing them to deteriorate, we have made ourselves vulnerable, Flynn says, but he thinks a renewed push to invest in the United States' infrastructure would go a long way toward making all of us safer."

CNN provides Anderson Cooper with a bully pulpit that reaches a much broader audience than this blog, so, believing this is an important subject deserving fuller discussion, I submitted the following comment to his site:

Mr. Cooper’s blog about America's crumbling infrastructure brings to light an important issue. Its importance, however, goes far beyond simply remaining safe from terrorist attacks. Critical infrastructure is essential to America’s economic health. China and other newly modern and integrating countries, for example, are building critical infrastructure at a rapid rate. This new critical infrastructure will allow those countries to be strong competitors on the global economic stage. The challenge is that ownership and responsibility for various components of America’s critical infrastructure are spread over public and private sectors. Rebuilding that infrastructure will take both strong leadership and continued financial, political and technological commitment. Corporations charged with owning and/or managing critical infrastructure will invest where there is a relatively short-term return on investment; however, where there is no reasonably short-term ROI, then investment will languish. While the best solution would be for public and private stake holders to work together to rebuild critical infrastructure, it probably won’t happen without significant government pressure.

Beyond rebuilding America’s crumbling infrastructure, Mr. Cooper is really addressing the issue of how we can make America more resilient to man-made and natural disasters. I spend a lot of time thinking and writing about resilience. By resilience I mean more than simply being able to bounce back once a crisis takes place. I believe that nation states, organizations and individuals need to be systemically adaptable to a rapidly changing environment. When there is a disaster, systemic adaptability permits us to snap back from the shock, but also makes our organizations and social systems self-healing and self-optimizing. In other words, we deploy a form of organizational judo that permits us to respond to the disaster or attack and in responding learn from the threat or vulnerability. In responding dynamically, we make ourselves even stronger and more adaptable. My company is working with public and private organizations to find ways of becoming proactive in the search for resilience. This search is not just on the national level, but in the global arena as well. To that end, I helped establish the Institute for Advanced Studies in Global Resilience (www.iatgr.org) and serve as its Executive Director. Our agenda is to make individuals, corporations, governmental agencies, transnational organizations and nation states optimally resilient.

I welcome ideas and support from anybody interested in this topic. I appreciate the fact that Esquire magazine saw the benefit of this work and highlighted the Institute in its December 2006 issue (http://www.enterrasolutions.com/samples/enterra/assets/ActualEsquireArticle.pdf). The Institute is new and just getting on its feet, but I hope to attract an eclectic group of thinkers who are willing to contribute to the discussion about how to make the world a safer and more resilient place. Global resilience is not just good for America, it is good for other developed countries and, just as importantly, critical to helping those stuck in poverty to break free from the vicious cycle that keeps them from improving their standard of living and get connected with the rest of the world. Mr. Cooper is correct that efforts to make the America more resilient must begin at home, with each of us getting involved.

New York's New Sensor Net

Last Friday the New York Times reported that New York City is about to become a Department of Homeland Security testing ground for sensors designed to detect nuclear material that could be used in so-called "dirty bombs" ["New York to Test Ways to Prevent Nuclear Terror," by Eric Lipton, 8 February 2007].

"Starting this spring, the Bush administration will assess new detection machines at a Staten Island port terminal that are designed to screen cargo and automatically distinguish between naturally occurring radiation and critical bomb-building ingredients. And later this year, the federal government plans to begin setting up an elaborate network of radiation alarms at some bridges, tunnels, roadways and waterways into New York, creating a 50-mile circle around the city."

It doesn't take much imagination to conjure up the mountains of data that could be collected daily from the thousands of vehicles entering New York City. Expand that cordon of sensors to other major U.S. cities and you begin to understand that manually monitoring is impossible. According to Lipton, if the NYC experiment is successful the system will be expanded.

"The effort, which could be expanded to other cities if proven successful, is a major shift of focus for the Department of Homeland Security. As it finishes installing the first generation of radiation scanners at the nation’s ports and land border crossings, the department is trying to find ways to stop a plot that would use a weapon built within the United States."

According to the article, not everyone believes the sensor net is a good idea.

"Some members of Congress and antiterrorism experts are raising concerns that the initiative, like previous Homeland Security programs, could prove extraordinarily costly and provide few security gains. 'This is just total baloney,' said Tara O’Toole, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration, where she oversaw nuclear weapons safety efforts. 'They are forgetting that no matter what type of engineering solution they try in good faith to come up with, this is a thinking enemy and they will look for a way around it.' While Homeland Security officials repeatedly declined to estimate the costs of a nationwide detection system, agency documents show they might spend more than a billion dollars on the cargo-screening equipment alone. Local officials in New York are sparring with Homeland Security over a plan to immediately transfer to local and state authorities the burden of maintaining and operating the network of detection machines when it is completed within several years."

Those are legitimate concerns. The objective, according to Vayl S. Oxford, director of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, is to complicate terrorist planning, not to eliminate the risk entirely.

"Mr. Oxford said he is aware of the concerns about costs, which is still the subject of negotiations, and the performance of the new detection machines. But with a threat like a nuclear attack, the country cannot afford to wait until all the details are worked out, he said. ... The Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, among the newest agencies at Homeland Security, was established in April 2005, in response to criticism that efforts to combat nuclear terrorism were too disorganized. The office focuses on blocking two types of plots: a nuclear weapon or a dirty bomb. A nuclear attack by terrorists is considered unlikely, because of the difficulty of obtaining the required radioactive materials, such as highly enriched uranium. The detonation of a dirty bomb is considered much more feasible. It only requires dynamite or another conventional explosive to detonate a widely available radioactive source — like the cesium or cobalt in certain medical devices. The blast might cause injuries or deaths, but the radioactive residue would cover a two- to three-block area and not pose an immediate health threat. Possible panic and economic disruption could be among the most serious consequences, experts say. The Securing the Cities detection network, as the New York experiment is called, is intended to stop a nuclear or radiological threat as far away from a city as possible."

Even critics have to admit that DHS is in a difficult position. It is criticized when it does nothing and it is criticized when it does something. The details of the new monitoring system are, of course, closely held, but the article reports:

"The network would most likely include truck inspection stations along highways approaching New York, which would be equipped with radiation detection devices, agency budget documents say. Devices might also be installed at highway tollbooths and at spots where rail, boat and subway traffic could be monitored. The detection equipment, some of which would be mobile, would be electronically connected and monitored so if a suspicious vehicle passed one spot without being stopped, it might be intercepted after passing another detector."

As anyone who read the article about me in Esquire Magazine ["The Age of Resilience"] knows, how systems are connected and monitored is exactly what Oak Ridge National Laboratory's SensorNet and Enterra's ResilienceNet are about. The challenge is not just radioactivity monitoring in New York, or expansion of that system elsewhere. As Lipton's article points out, there are other systems already in place that are also monitoring the environment for other threats.

"[Tara O’Toole, a former assistant secretary at the Department of Energy during the Clinton administration], pointed to Homeland Security’s BioWatch program, set up in about 30 cities in 2003 to monitor the air for a possible biological attack. The equipment was installed quickly, but there was no detailed plan in place for how to respond to positive alarms, which meant three weeks of confusion among Houston authorities in October 2003, after tularemia, a naturally occurring pathogen, was discovered. 'There is this disconnect between these grand schemes for technology and reality,' Ms. O’Toole said."

The partnership between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Enterra Solutions was designed to address the "disconnect between these schemes for technology and reality." The Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience [IATGR] was also established to study the challenges associated with making the world more resilient using technology. One of those challenges is making sure that dangerous material isn't available to terrorists in the first place.

"Laura S. H. Holgate, vice president at the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington-based research group, said the government should put far more energy into a global effort to prevent nuclear materials from getting into the hands of terrorists."

The tests underway in New York will look closely at false alarm rates, a challenge I have written about before [Homeland Security 2.0].

"The testing planned on Staten Island at the New York Container Terminal is intended to police concerns about false alarms. Three sets of new types of detection machines have been installed there. For the first time, such machines sound an alarm when something radioactive passes through, and simultaneously identify the radioactive isotope. That allows officials to distinguish between innocuous items that can emit low levels of radiation, such as granite or kitty litter, and real threats."

Connecting the dots, reducing false alarms, notifying appropriate authorities, responding with the right equipment, etc. are challenges that still need addressing. DHS will undoubtedly be criticized for moving too slow by some and too fast by others. What taxpayers don't want, regardless of DHS' speed of advance, is massive waste of government funds. That is where Oak Ridge, Enterra, and IATGR hope to help. Tom Barnett also wrote a post about this article.

Homeland Security 2.0

If everything went as planned last evening for my colleague Tom Barnett, he was seated close to field at one of the most exciting conference championships in years as Indianapolis defeated New England. As he entered the stadium with thousands of other fans, there is a good chance he went through several layers of security checks (some obvious and some not). Aaron Pressman, writing in BusinessWeek, discussed security measures taken during a previous playoff game between the New Giants and Philadelphia Eagles ("Homeland Security 2.0," 22 January 2007.]

"Few if any of the 68,000 rabid Philadelphia Eagles fans arriving for last Sunday's National Football League playoff game against the New York Giants knew that they had been scanned by one of the latest high-tech anti-terrorism tools. Pennsylvania security officials deployed radiation probes at the gates of Lincoln Financial Field to stop terrorists from sneaking in a homemade nuclear device that could kill thousands. Personnel on the grounds carried even more-sensitive equipment. The new gear, made by Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., was tailored to distinguish dangerous radioactive material from the harmless traces left by common medical procedures that have prompted screeners to question more than a few innocent fans at events such as the Super Bowl. The Waltham (Mass.) company's more discerning scanner and similar new products from competitors are part of a wave of advanced equipment coming to market five years after the September 11 terrorist attacks. Call it homeland security 2.0."

False alarms are a difficult problem for any sensor system. Make the sensor too sensitive and false alarms rise dramatically and, like the boy who cried wolf, eventually real alarms are missed amid the noise. Make sensors less sensitive and they may miss critical information that could save lives. Pressman gives a hint of how large a problem false alarms can be.

"After the 2001 attacks, federal, state, and local governments snapped up equipment that had been created for industrial applications such as detecting leaks at nuclear power plants. But the gear had been quickly adapted for its new use and didn't always perform as required. Portable detectors carried by some New York City policemen signaled an alarm near any radioactive source, even the granite around entrances to subway stations. Scanners for ports tagged containers carrying kitty litter as potential hazards. U.S. Customs & Border Protection, a division of the Homeland Security Dept., told Congress in May that it recorded 318,000 alarms from port sensors scanning 80 million containers over the past three years without finding any serious threats."

One of the programs that Enterra Solutions is working on with Oak Ridge National Lab (and one featured in an article in Esquire Magazine ["The Age of Resilience"]) is ResilienceNet whose aim is to accept inputs from Oak Ridge's SensorNet and push alerts to those who need to respond to them. As you can imagine, false alarm rates are a concern for both Enterra and Oak Ridge. Reducing false alarm rates could be one of the topics investigated by the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience (IATGR). Pressman writes, "Thermo Fisher is aiming to eliminate the false alarms," but that would surprise me. If you have no false alarms, you don't know whether the sensor is detecting all important data. Normally, sensor manufacturers are looking for the lowest possible false alarm rate. Since Thermo Fisher Scientific is one of the companies in the running to provide scanners for ports, getting the annual false alarm rate into the hundreds instead of hundreds of thousands is an important objective.

False alarms can affect a lot of areas of our lives. A New York Times article by Gina Kolata discussed a reported whooping cough epidemic in New Hampshire that turned out to be a non-event triggered by a high false alarm rate from a quick and highly sensitive molecular test for the whooping cough bacterium, Bordetella pertussis ["Faith in Quick Test Leads to Epidemic that Wasn't," 22 January 2007]. Not a single case of whooping was actually discovered, but the impact of the false alarms was significant.

"Nearly 1,000 health care workers at the hospital in Lebanon, N.H., were given a preliminary test and furloughed from work until their results were in; 142 people ... were told they appeared to have the disease; and thousands were given antibiotics and a vaccine for protection. Hospital beds were taken out of commission, including some in intensive care. Now, as they look back on the episode, epidemiologists and infectious disease specialists say the problem was that they placed too much faith in a quick and highly sensitive molecular test that led them astray."

In an era where terrorism is on everyone's mind and leaders fear a chemical, biological, or nuclear attacks that affect large segments of the population, having a reliable sensor network is important. A network that triggers an inordinate number of false alarms, however, is not much better than no network at all. Quick, reliable tests are important for helping contain situations before they become crises.

"Infectious disease experts say such tests are coming into increasing use and may be the only way to get a quick answer in diagnosing diseases like whooping cough, Legionnaire’s, bird flu, tuberculosis and SARS, and deciding whether an epidemic is under way."

As you can see, there are innumerable individuals applying themselves to all aspects of human security. Although they are working in different areas, they face similar problems -- false alarms being just one. The search for Global Resilience requires sensors, tests, networks, data mining, alerts and so forth. The wealth of data can be overwhelming and automated processes for dealing with it are a must. Data must be collected and correlated across disciplines as well as across borders. It's an exciting challenge that will keep us all very busy for years to come.

Data Collection Challenges

The 2004 Intelligence Reform Act authorized a Cross-Border Electronic Funds Transfer Program as part of America's war on terrorism. A Washington Post article that discusses a report just issued by the Department of Treasury notes how difficult setting up a massive data collection program can be ["Vast Data Collection Plan Faces Big Delay," by Ellen Nakashima, 17 January 2007]. Treasury had hoped to start the program by the end of this year but now reports that it will be delayed until at least 2010.

"The Treasury Department concluded that the program was technologically feasible and has value, but said it needs to determine whether the counterterrorism benefit outweighs banks' costs of compliance and to address privacy concerns."

Conducting cost/benefit analysis is always wise; but when issues like terrorism and privacy are concerned, subjective factors (like emotions) often play as big a role as objective factors (like compliance costs). Bankers oppose the program because they feel it is burdensome and intrusive. According to the article:

"Unlike another Treasury program, which uses administrative powers that bypass traditional banking privacy protections to tap into the vast global database of transactions maintained by the Brussels-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, the cross-border plan is the result of legislation sought by Treasury and would require congressional oversight."

Banks and money services, Nakashima reports, are already required by law to keep records on all wire transfers of $3,000 or more. "The proposed program would mandate that each of those transactions -- if they cross the U.S. border -- be reported to the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)." She continues:

"The type of data captured would include the names and addresses of senders, the amount and dates of the transfers, the names and addresses of the beneficiaries and their financial institutions. Treasury officials said in interviews and in the report to Congress that the data would give analysts more information to ferret out illicit activity as they try to detect links between suspects. FinCEN said that Australia and Canada had used similar data effectively. Australia has used it to catch tax evaders and predict the movement of drugs into and out of the country. But those countries deal with much smaller numbers of transactions. Treasury receives more than 16 million currency transaction records and suspicious activity reports a year from banks and other financial institutions, which help officials track money launderers and terrorist activity. Bankers say the additional reporting requirement would be a tremendous burden. 'We're talking about a volume of transactions that dwarfs anything that has been done in the name of [financial regulatory reporting] up to now,' said Richard R. Riese, director of the American Bankers Association Center for Regulatory Compliance."

Such a massive data collection effort, if it occurs, would demand automated rule sets to help keep compliance and data mining costs affordable. The Treasury Department has proposed a "first in" and "last out" rule that would require only the first institution to receive a cross-border fund transfer or the last institution that actually makes a cross-border transaction to file reports. The number of reports would still be massive, but technically the challenge is not insurmountable. Dealing with privacy issues is another challenge being raised both in America and Europe.

"In an October interview, Robert W. Werner, who then was director of FinCEN, said most of the data collected would be 'commercial oriented' transactions and 'irrelevant' to FinCEN's mission to detect and prevent illicit activity. 'The key is to have a system that allows you to be able to pull the relevant data without people worrying that irrelevant data is being browsed and used inappropriately,' he said. FinCEN would also need to develop the technical capability to store and analyze the information, the study noted. FinCEN is considering setting up a 'federated data warehouse' to store the data, which would be held separately from other financial records data. Officials said there would be strict rules to ensure that the data is not shared inappropriately, including audit trails to check for improper access. The program would be developed through a public rulemaking process over an extended period, officials said. 'We know there will be costs. We believe there is value. How do those two play out?' said Eric Kringel, senior policy adviser at FinCEN. He said that as a regulatory body, FinCEN 'would not want to proceed' without determining if the benefit is worth the cost. FinCEN has proposed taking a year to conduct a $1.1 million cost benefit analysis. Implementation would cost $32.6 million and take 3 1/2 years, officials said."

If the cost/benefit analysis indicates that government should proceed, the kinds of supporting technologies that could address reporting, mining, correlating, and protecting data are all the kinds of issues that could be researched at the Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience (IATGR). It could be especially useful during the "rulemaking process" discussed in the article. With potential costs (both real and social) being so high, taking time to make the right decision appears to be a wise course.

Globalization's Ebb and Flow

Most analysts believe that globalization will continue to sweep across the globe like Noah's flood. Countries that survive and prosper will be those that climb aboard the ark of connectivity and adhere to some basic rule sets. There is ample evidence that this course of action can help populations mired in poverty raise their standard of living. An article in USA Today, however, indicates that some leaders continue to place sandbags around their country's economy believing they have some insight into a better way ["Enthusiasm for globalization ebbs," by David Lynch, 15 January 2007]. The sub-headline, "Economic conditions good, but gripes flow," is telling. Lynch begins his article by noting a few of the areas where backsliding has begun.

"At home and abroad, globalization is under increasing stress. From Venezuela, where President Hugo Chavez announced plans last week to nationalize critical industries, to Thailand, which has imposed new controls on foreign capital, countries are embracing long-discredited economic strategies. In Geneva, multilateral talks aimed at a new global trade pact remain deadlocked."

Most of those scenarios have more to do with holding on to political power than they do with fostering the global economy and bringing billions more people out of poverty. That is just as true in the United States as elsewhere. Lynch notes:

"The backsliding overseas comes as a new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill, which is intent on overhauling the Bush administration's trade policy, is getting down to work. Many of the new Democratic lawmakers campaigned on so-called fair-trade platforms and are deeply skeptical of the free-trade strategies pursued by Republican and Democratic presidents alike for a generation. 'The idea of globalization and continued societal embrace of openness seems to be in a very deep sense of crisis,' says Rawi Abdelal, a professor at Harvard Business School. The ebbing enthusiasm for additional integration is particularly noteworthy coming after four consecutive years of global economic expansion. In the USA, unemployment is a low 4.5% and the Dow Jones industrial average closed Friday at a record high. Economic conditions elsewhere, from the mature economies of the European Union to developing markets in China and India, likewise are sunny. That's what makes the pervasive gripes over globalization — the free flow of goods, services and capital across national borders — so striking."

Were the world mired in a deep depression, the gripes would be understandable, or if globalization had only benefited wealthy nations. But neither situation is true. Lynch continues:

"As perhaps the world's most globalized economy, the USA benefits enormously from increasingly integrated markets and financial flows. Foreign capital finances the U.S. current account deficit, effectively allowing savings-poor Americans to live beyond their means. Free trade boosts U.S. output by $1 trillion annually, $10,000 per U.S. household, according to the Peterson Institute for International Economics. Assuming continued progress knitting together national economies, there is more to come. By 2030, total world trade is expected to almost triple to $27 trillion, according to the World Bank. Trade as a percentage of total output will rise from about one-quarter to more than one-third. Uri Dadush, director of the bank's international trade department, says including in the global marketplace once-excluded countries such as China, India and the former Soviet bloc is potentially a century-long process. 'We are just at the beginning of this,' he says. That's what worries some people: 59% of Americans believe free trade costs more jobs than it creates, according to a 2006 poll by the non-profit German Marshall Fund of the United States. Today, shoring up public support for global integration 'may be the most important economic challenge of our time,' [Timothy] Geithner [president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York] told a New York audience last week, adding that the task is complicated by rising income inequality and growing consumer financial insecurity."

There are serious challenges. It has been well documented that productivity has far outpaced wage increases creating some of the inequality noted by Lynch. Unions are starting to stir as workers' sense of unease and dissatisfaction grows. Lynch reports that they have reason to be concerned:

"The risk of a 50% drop in family income has more than doubled since the 1970s, according to Jacob Hacker, a Yale University professor. ... If more workers today feel chilled by trade liberalization rather than cheered, they may have good reason. When the current era of global interdependence began with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, only the jobs of low-skilled factory workers appeared threatened by foreign competition. Technological change, shrinking communication costs and falling trade barriers are exposing a growing share of the labor force to foreign competition. Many of the newly insecure are white-collar workers in service industries, including computer programmers, radiologists, copy editors and accountants. So far, despite controversy over 'outsourcing' in the 2004 presidential race, the number of jobs actually transferred overseas has been limited. But, ultimately, 28 million to 42 million service sector jobs could be at risk, according to Alan Blinder, former Federal Reserve Board vice chairman. 'We have so far barely seen the tip of the offshoring iceberg, the eventual dimensions of which may be staggering,' Blinder wrote in Foreign Affairs last year. Key Democrats say further liberalization is possible only if trade deals are rewritten to include labor and environmental standards and if voters' financial anxieties are addressed."

The fact of the matter is that jobs don't simply flee to areas where cheap labor can be found. If that were true, Haiti would have a booming economy. An educated, skilled, and reliable workforce is required. Workers in such a force are not blind to exploitation. As middle classes grow, conditions improve. The Democrats want to frontload trade agreements to ensure better working conditions (meaning a more competitive labor market) from the get-go. That's great if it works. The hope held out by globalization is that billions can be brought out of poverty. If workers are simply exploited to make the rich richer, globalization is more likely to result in global unrest than global prosperity. Enlightened corporate leaders can't let that happen. They will balance profits with benefits and stock holder interests with worker interests. All of this will level the playing field. Trying to stop globalization's advance, however, is not the answer to a better world. Lynch concluded his article by noting that trade policy could dominate the next presidential election.

"Among Democrats, there is a consensus that the U.S. needs a new approach to managing the ongoing remaking of international economic ties. At one extreme, the party's populist wing, represented by newly elected Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, wants to renegotiate long-settled treaties such as NAFTA and give Congress a greater role in writing new trade agreements. Free-trade supporters, on the other hand, including some who designed the Clinton administration's economic policies, are eyeing a variety of measures aimed at promoting individuals' economic security. Only by improving education, pensions and health care can public support for further liberalizing trade be maintained, say pro-trade experts at the Hamilton Project, a policy study group created by former Treasury secretary Robert Rubin at the Brookings Institution. No one has yet developed a full legislative proposal. And some, such as Harvard's Abdelal, say it may be the 2008 presidential campaign before the issue is fully joined. But eventually the debate will occur. The aftershocks caused by adding more than 2 billion low-wage workers to the international labor pool, and the ever-growing interdependence of developed and developing countries, are rattling U.S. policies and institutions created for a much different world. 'Globalization has outrun the normal dynamics of international trade, particularly how you approach it as a policy matter. … Everybody is just trying to figure out their response,' says Robert Shapiro, a Washington consultant who oversaw economic policy for President Clinton's 1992 campaign. 'This is a large change in how the world works.'"

What Shapiro says is true. Both technology and the economy development have outpaced policy development. There now exists what my colleague Tom Barnett calls a rule set gap. A rule set reset is needed and it can't be achieved in isolation. The U.S. must engage with others (rich and poor countries alike) to help bring about rules that will help keep globalization on course. The Democrats appear a bit too divided to make that happen during this congressional session. Let's hope leaders emerge with vision necessary to work together to close the rule set gap before unrest gets out of control and globalization stalls. Such an eventuality would benefit no one. New rules are an important part of Global Resilience and the kind of issue that will hopefully be taken up by the new Institute for Advanced Technologies in Global Resilience (IATGR). For another take on the article, see Tom Barnett's post [The Gist of the Times].