The 2012 presidential election will be won by the candidate who can convince voters that he has the vision to lift the nation out of the economic doldrums. The economy is the right topic, but the discussion neglects the true driver of the country's prosperity: scientific and technological enterprise. Half of the U.S. economic growth since World War II has come from advances in science and technology. To neglect that power—and the government's role in priming the pump—would be foolish.
The auto industry is a case in point. President Barack Obama makes much out of having rescued Detroit's carmakers from bankruptcy. This achievement won't hold up, however, unless the thousands of small auto-parts manufacturers down the supply chain stay globally competitive. One way to help them would be to foster initiatives like the National Digital Engineering and Manufacturing Consortium, which is providing independent manufacturers potent information technology at Purdue University and the Ohio Supercomputer Center. By harnessing this science and technology strength, we can generate a competitive advantage for small businesses.
President Obama and Governor Mitt Romney ought to be talking about how to use programs like this to bring about the kind of success that Germany has achieved. The German government encourages a close partnership between technical universities and industrial manufacturers; it supports centers where scientists and engineers pursue fundamental research in close proximity to industrial colleagues investigating more applied technologies. German battery makers, for instance, work with technical universities on nanotechnology, while textile makers contribute to research in carbon fibers for composite fabrics. Could there be a grander vision for harnessing U.S. research talent in this way? On this, both candidates have been silent.
Research can also advance other strategic national goals, such as energy security. For instance, the U.S. Department of Energy funded and helped to develop the shale-cracking techniques that have released the country's current surplus of natural gas. And no nuclear reactor has ever been built in this country without financial and scientific support from all levels of government.
The next administration could play a large role in developing novel nuclear reactors and cheap solar power, among other technologies. Yet on this issue the candidates differ markedly, according to their responses to 14 science questions posed by Scientific American and ScienceDebate.org [see “America's Science Problem,” on page 62]. While Obama touts the $90 billion in federal investments in clean energy research made on his watch, Romney repudiates this “green energy agenda.”
His thinking is shortsighted. The bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra in 2011, which critics have used to argue against government support of energy research, instead shows why such investment is so important: experimental projects always carry a high risk of failure, which is why commercial firms are reluctant to undertake them. Yet without them, innovation will slow. The DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy funds ideas that may sound like science fiction to some—genetically modifying microbes to produce fuel, for example. History shows that such bold efforts will yield the beginnings of new industries. In 1962, for example, a researcher envisioned a fanciful “Galactic Network” that would connect distant computers, inspiring the Pentagon project that eventually became the Internet.
A high-tech economy needs the best scientists and engineers, yet in science and math, U.S. students are middling. The Obama administration has had some success by tying grants for K–12 schools to Common Core math standards, but neither candidate has come out in support of the Next Generation Science Standards recommended by the National Research Council.
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Add Comment"President Barack Obama makes much out of having rescued Detroit's carmakers from bankruptcy"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYet they did file bankruptcy
Here’s the MSNBC story from June 1, 2009:
General Motors filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Monday as part of the Obama administration’s plan to shrink the automaker to a sustainable size and give a majority ownership stake to the federal government.
"The bankruptcy of solar panel maker Solyndra in 2011, which critics have used to argue against government support of energy research, instead shows why such investment is so important: experimental projects always carry a high risk of failure, which is why commercial firms are reluctant to undertake them. Yet without them, innovation will slow."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo your thesis is unfalsifiable.
I worked in the auto industry in its heyday and was involved during the pioneering of the robot revolution.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI would like to point out that many of the engineers
we have turned out lately are unemployed or underemployed.Because of the loss of manufacturing here in this country you can turn out all the engineers in the world and it will be of no avail because there are not enough opportunities for young engineers to develop.
Many of the people calling for more engineers and math majors have never been involved in manufacturing. The allure of cheap labor out of the U.S.was always there. But the reason it was unfeasable is that A Large Skilled trades workforce was required to do heavy manufacturing and about the only place it existed after ww2 was in Germany and the U.S.
A Die Maker for example required an engineering education as well as yrs of experience to ply his trade. He also had to have a willingness to do hard physical labor. These were the jobs that made us who we were, and these were the talents that couldn't be duplicated in the third world.
The advent of cnc machines,Programmable controllers
and robotic systems has made it possible for China, India,or any third world country to spend a few bucks
and buy a manufacturing system that plugs in like a toaster......that is why the jobs left...and that is
why no amount of engineers will ever bring us back to
world dominance.
If you add up all the engineers that we graduate they
would not equal in numbers the top 10 per cent of China's grads.
The German example is very good. If you don't have the
numbers you have to work smarter....We need to focus
our efforts at helping our infrastructure grow by
providing incentives to do business here.Provide fertile soil and the economy will grow.
If China wants to do nuclear power...there is no
vocal lobby that will stop them. If they want to build
a battery factory , they don't have to file an environmental impact statement...
We do everything we can to shoot our ability to compete in the foot....Non if this is going to change
and that is one of the drawbacks as well as the beauty
of our system.
However the use of billions of taxpayer money being given to China to build the new Bay bridge in California is the type of thing that we cannot continue to do. Forget the the financial aspects of it for a minute and think of the young engineers and tradesmen that would have had the opportunity of a lifetime to learn their trade and the payback that society would have gotten for the rest of their lifes.....
Solyndra was not engaged in energy research per se.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThey were supposedly engaged in manufacturing solar
panels. Tax payer money built a shiny global headquarters as a monument to the foolishness of the
government trying to pick successfull technologies based on how much campaign money was contributed or who you
were networking with...
Everyone agrees that having a solar manufacturing
facility like that would be great but wanting it and
executing it ain't gonna make it so. By the time it was built the technology it employed was too expensive and out of date to sell...and that is the purpose of business.....selling ... not making environmentalists feel good.
I have a gut feeling that a company like Bain capital would not have invested there but hey.....when its the governments money there is no accountability..
Hmmmm maybe there is.
I think this already happens in fact I've read several articles complaining about universities inventing things that the companies then sell for a profit,even though the company sponsored/donated money to that university to work out the invention in the first place. So I don't think the government needs to start anymore programs and If anything Obama threatening to eliminate corporate write offs from taxes will only harm this situation even more. GM the bankrupt automobile manufacture has already moved their research department to China, signaling the start of the brain drain from the U.S. General Electric, one of Obama's key advisors has also move much out of this country, kind of like rats leaving a sinking ship maybe we better heed the signs.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't think you understand the term, "unfalsifiable". Something isn't unfalsifiable just because your arguments against it are without merit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRodestar99 is correct, private equity would not invest in a risky startup like Solyndra. They mostly invest in situations where they can further concentrate wealth by cutting jobs then quickly flipping the stripped company for a big profit that goes to Wall Street "engineers." We need to get bankers back into the business of banking, engineers back into product development and innovation, and tax private equity out of business. Along the way we should re-enact Glass-Steagall. Venture capital should be provided with incentives to invest log-term. Day traders should also be taxed to death so public companies can focus on long term profits and high speed electronic trading should be banned or limited to casinos since it is Little more than gambling. And yes, the federal government should ramp up its support for basic research and aggressively license patents to the private sector. I agree Solyndra is a bad example because the government was supporting commercialization more than basic research. We have plenty of work to clean up our side of the street and this should be our focus rather than blaming China for all our woes. When China enters into unfair trade practices we should be prepared to retaliate. However, when China or any other country has a competitive advantage we should look at ourselves and decide how to regain the advantage through innovation. America needs to move from our short-term instant gratification mode to a longer term strategic focus if we hope to be successful.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNone of those companies would have been possible without the innovation in technologies that they require to run on (ie computer systems, the internet). Their contribution, while significant, doesn't necessarily represent a major innovation in technology but rather the end-use. Your point is valid, as I'm sure there are plenty of companies that thrive without government involvement, but your examples don't address the engineering I believe the article was intent on encouraging.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, presumably a rip-off of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), should follow the example of its namesake, limiting its funding to basic and pre-basic research for the "DARPA-esque" break-throughs in new energy sources. Each such project at DARPA is funded in amounts of a few millions of dollars, not $500M. Solyndra does not represent such basic research. Rather it represents the advanced stages of commercial development of bench-proved concepts that the DoD usually leaves to commercial partners. Oil as a source of usable energy has never required such large sums of taxpayer dollars to make it commercially viable.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisUS economy failed like any other imperial systems in world's history. The increasing cost of military force projection around the world and decreasing return on off-shore enterprises.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI somewhat agree with rodmichael, in that, if the technology is experimental: i.e., “…experimental projects always carry a high risk of failure…” then the experimental project should be relegated to research institutions that can reduce the risk of failure of that technology and prove the technology on a smaller scale (millions vs. billions of dollars) instead of forcing the commercialization of the product prematurely. Gains in solar cell efficiency are being made every day by researchers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, should we force the commercialization of fusion energy when clearly the technology is not ready for that step?
Companies themselves can decide whether or not to adopt the technology if it provides a competitive advantage. This process may be slower than the government would like but it would probably be sustainable until replaced by more advanced technology. This obsolescence process happens every day in the commercial world.
However, if the government is providing funding for the commercialization of product that is not commercially viable and your salary depends on it, try to keep that funding going as long as possible.
I somewhat agree with rodmichael, in that, if the technology is experimental: i.e., “…experimental projects always carry a high risk of failure…” then the experimental project should be relegated to research institutions that can reduce the risk of failure of that technology and prove the technology on a smaller scale (millions vs. billions of dollars) instead of forcing the commercialization of the product prematurely. Gains in solar cell efficiency are being made every day by researchers.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor example, should we force the commercialization of fusion energy when clearly the technology is not ready for that step?
Companies themselves can decide whether or not to adopt the technology if it provides a competitive advantage. This process may be slower than the government would like but it would probably be sustainable until replaced by more advanced technology. This obsolescence process happens every day in the commercial world.
However, if the government is providing funding for the commercialization of product that is not commercially viable and your salary depends on it, try to keep that funding going as long as possible.
The US is not an "imperial" power. To paraphrase someone probably not very favorably viewed in this forum, the only land for which we have asked after any of our foreign wars has been only that necessary to bury our dead.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs far as the cost of our "military force projection," it is that force projection that has largely kept the peace around the world for the past 67 years. Certainly not the UN which has proved only a profitable boondoggle for the 3rd world diplomats (frequently representing non-democratic states) who are lucky enough to be posted to NYC.
Considering Solyndra as an R&D 'experiment' is truly putting -- as candidate Obama said in 2008 -- 'lipstick on a pig'. The specific facts and history of this mis-adventure, funded with hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars, could hardly qualify as fundamental or technological R&D. I agree that basic and applied research, integrated with carefully planned technology transfer projects and subjected to due diligence, are essential for securing the economic, environmental, and social health of this nation, but there are much better examples to offer than this thinly-veiled, political excuse for government and 'science' at its poorest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRecently, while working as a temp. at a major auto-parts manufacturer in the US, the entire company was bought by Germany last month. Thanks to this months issue of SciAm, now I know why. And why we can learn a lot from Germany: like how to weather a world-wide economic crisis with aplomb and profitability--all due to a Science-based national economic model--CEO QW.com
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYES, BUT HOW LONG DOES IT TAKE TO GET NEW IDEAS INTO MAIN STREAM SO THAT THE GENERAL PUBLIC CAN BE AWARE OF NEW FINDINGS? 5 YEARS? 10 YEARS? NEVER? IF THE TAXPAYERS ARE SUPPORTING MUCH OF SCIENCE, HOW ABOUT SPREADING THE KNOWLEDGE (THE POWER TO BE HEALTHIER, WEALTHIER, ETC.) WITH BETTER. TAKE A LOOK AT 800-900- DIRECT TV STATIONS OF INFORMATION. HOW MUCH SCIENCE FOR BETTER LIVING IS THERE? ARE THEY TRYING TO GUARENTEE A STUPID, NON COMPETING NATION, SCIENTIFICALLY? COME ON STOP LEAVING SMALL POTATOES OUT OF YOUR FORMULA FOR A BETTER LIFE FOR SCIENTISTS AND THOSE WHO FUND THEM!
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