Below are the first 10 and last 10 pages of uncorrected machine-read text (when available) of this chapter, followed by the top 30 algorithmically extracted key phrases from the chapter as a whole.
Intended to provide our own search engines and external engines with highly rich, chapter-representative searchable text on the opening pages of each chapter.
Because it is UNCORRECTED material, please consider the following text as a useful but insufficient proxy for the authoritative book pages.
Do not use for reproduction, copying, pasting, or reading; exclusively for search engines.
OCR for page 35
35
CHAPTER 3
Findings and Applications
3.1 High-Level Commentary Another technology developer noted "An overwhelming prob-
on a 15-Year Timeline lem for sensing things at any range is that everything existing
uses batteries. That will drive users crazy. Passive technologies
In reviewing research materials for this project, a cross- do exist, and they are capable of sensing things--but this is a
section of current concerns specific to Hazmat transported very difficult problem. Power has to be somewhere."
within each mode was evident. In terms of shared concerns, cer- This recognition of the importance of stand-alone devices
tainly characteristics of the three surface modes (highway, rail, that can operate from sources of self-generated power was
and marine) position those modes to have the most technolo- noted early by the research team. Three of the most promising
gies in common. Trains and barges are physically constrained technology selections are associated with non-typical sources
in the routes that they can follow compared with trucks, aircraft, of electrical power, which is an enabler that allows other tech-
and (to an extent) oceangoing vessels. The air mode has
nologies to be used more economically, such as for detection
more in common with the surface modes than with the fixed
and alerting. These three technologies are wireless power,
infrastructure of the pipeline mode; yet it differs from the
plastic thin-film organic solar cells with flexible polymer bat-
surface modes in that quantities of the Hazmat transported
teries, and nanopiezoelectronics. (The first two were winners
by air are much smaller, the characteristics of the Hazmat
of the MIT Technology Review's "10 Emerging Technologies"
are less dangerous (from the perspective of a catastrophic
for 2008 and 2009, respectively). These three alternative power
incident resulting from the Hazmat), and air transport
generation technologies are not being developed for the pri-
occurs within a virtual "closed loop" of long-standing safety
mary purpose of transportation applications. This under-
and security processes.
scores the team's premise in Section 2.2 of this report that
Most emerging technologies discovered in the course of this
project are involved with vehicles. Some are intended to serve the research should include applications of technologies used
as preventive or detection technologies for infrastructure used in (or being developed for) other industries but not currently
by vehicles such as in bridges, tunnels, or railroad tracks. adapted to transportation. The remaining most promising
Understandably, most of the pipeline technologies are involved emerging technology selections have each to some degree been
with infrastructure. The selection of container integrity envisioned as having a transportation application. One of the
improvements encompasses all modes and includes concepts RFID technology systems whose developer, a national labora-
not only of strengthened materials but also ways to use the tory, was interviewed as part of this project won a 2010 RFID
commodity itself to help seal a leak. While the focus is clearly Journal award as one of three finalists in the category of "Most
on large tanks such as those on rail tank cars, some of the con- Innovative Use of RFID" for its use of RFID to modernize the
tainer improvements may carry over to strengthening smaller management of nuclear materials (41).
containers such as those used to transport radioactive isotopes. One interviewee made forward-thinking observations about
As observed by one of the technology developers, "Electron- technology developments, grouped into three time periods with
ics are providing more capabilities with less power and lower respect to technologies' anticipated time of commercialization:
cost. Consumers are demanding that devices last longer with-
out being tethered to a charger or a communication cable. · The Near Term (Present5 Years)
Memory devices are going up and the costs are going down. "In the near-term, informational technologies will reign.
Battery energy densities are up, implying that small form fac- More traditional technologies can be made to work in
tors can now power the same electronics in a smaller volume." new ways for remediation, packaging standards, safety,
