ARPA-E Getting Big Boost?

[Brian H]

This MIT article and interview with the ARPA-E director speculates that the federal basic research budget might go from $4 bn to $25 bn!

Q. Assuming there would be enough of these projects, how would you see the potential role of ARPA-E in such a program?

A. ARPA-E alone cannot solve the whole energy problem. That’s not its role. There’s a need for basic science — discoveries and tools, etc. — and there’s a need for deployment and supporting technologies that are already here today. ARPA-E’s goal, as I mentioned earlier, is to take the science and translate it into technologies that do not exist today that, should they exist, would make today’s technologies obsolete and that are too risky today for the private sector to invest in.

I guess FF is too close to “basic science” for ARPA-E to get involved in just yet. Maybe the engineering phase might attract its attention. For better or worse.

[Ivy Matt]

Well, I would have thought “advanced research” covered what LPP is doing, but I guess maybe it’s a little too advanced.

[Rezwan]

Post Partisan Power doc is brilliant. Thanks Brian!

The only shortfall of this think tank group is they have no mention of leveraging new media or “Gov 2.0” type approaches. Just reviving tried and true methods of gov-centric spending on research with military procurement as the main driver. Fair enough, but it’s time to get creative and crack open the pinata of the long tail. Don’t just tax people at the pump – give them the ability to pick and choose energy projects to invest in, and the legal right to do so, even if they aren’t “accredited investors”. Big oversight.

In any case, this doc helps the fusion policy effort, so thanks again!

[Breakable]

I am really interested who is responsible for cutting the non-tokamak research. It is like a dead-body in evidence and I would love to see who pulled the trigger. As Innovative Confinement Concepts develops friends it finds enemies too, so I think we as a community should spend some time to find out who are the evil masterminds opposing fusion diversification.

[Brian H]

Here I once again express my heretical opinion that however tight the funding is from private sources, LPP is far better off being private and independent than living or dying on the whims and murky priorities of bureaucrats. Scrounging for investors and angels based on actual information and plans and results is WAY better than trying to convince pols and czars that you can advance their careers and power bases.

[Brian H]

Here’s an article suggesting that ARPA-E is being choked, and that the “renewables” subsidizing is trying to force existing techs into functionality they don’t have, rather than doing actual innovative seeding.
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/Clean-Tech-Sector-Heading-for-a-Major-Crash.html

It’s on an oil pricing site, and opines that one of the consequences of this failed strategy is going to be increased reliance on hydrocarbons, the opposite of what is intended.

FF will come as a major shock and surprise to these guys, too.

[Author]

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