Empirically proven—leads to eventual adoption—no reason why immediate subsidies are key
Hayward et al 10
Steven Hayward, AEI Resident Scholar, Mark Muro, Brookings Institute Metropolitan Policy Program, Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, Breakthrough institute cofounders, October 2010, Post-Partisan Power, thebreakthrough.org/blog/Post-Partisan Power.pdf
In addition to fostering stronger linkages between government-funded research centers and private sector investors, entrepreneurs, and customers, the DOD can work to more closely connect research efforts and the growing energy innovation needs of the U.S. military.
This close relationship between research efforts and DOD procurement and technology needs was central to the successful history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), famous for inventing the Internet, GPS, and countless other technologies that have both improved the fighting capabilities of the U.S. military and launched many spin-off technologies American consumers and businesses now take for granted. DARPA program managers had a keen awareness of the technologies and innovations that could improve military capabilities and funded breakthrough innovations aligned with those needs. Once innovations matured into potentially useful technologies, the DOD was there as an early customer for these products, allowing entrepreneurial firms to secure market demand, scale-up production, and continue to improve their products.
Congress made the right move in creating and funding an Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) program modeled after the historic success of DARPA. ARPA-E resides within the DOE, however, which is not set up to be a major user of energy technologies. By contrast, DOD has both the opportunity and the urgent need to use many of these technologies.64 The DOD can and should play a greater role in administering ARPA-E and making sure that breakthrough energy discoveries become real- world technologies that can strengthen American energy security, enhance the capabilities of the U.S. military, and spin off to broader commercial use.
Aff card: SMRs on domestic bases spill over to bases abroad
Share with your friends: |
