"Engineered carbon nanotubes (CNTs) have such amazing, useful properties that they may be sparking the next industrial revolution. Among their characteristics:
•One-hundred thousand times smaller than the diameter of a human hair
•100 times stronger than steel and six times lighter.
•Excellent conductors of electricity.
•Transport heat better than any known material.
With such properties, CNTs promise to deliver dramatic societal benefits. A few examples:
•life-saving drug delivery devices
•stronger, lighter wind turbine blades
•more effective solar cells
Precarious Promise: A Case Study of Engineered Carbon Nanotubes shows that this is a precarious promise. Potential hazards to human health and the environment are increasingly well documented in CNTs, which can exist in tens of thousands of versions. This Lowell Center report reviews the discovery of CNTs and current understanding of the risks - risks which were predicted years ago. After summarizing current policies to control CNTs in the U.S. and in Europe - policies that are insufficient to ensure that only the safest CNTs enter commerce - the report explores the potential for alternatives assessment (a tool used to identify safer chemicals and materials) and the emerging field of green design to reduce risks from carbon nanotubes. The report concludes with a call to advocates, industry, government, and universities to "accelerate the development of tools that elevate health in design and decision-making, and to marshal an ambitious shift towards green materials design.”"

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