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The Best Science Writing Online 2012
Showcasing more than fifty of the most provocative, original, and significant online essays from 2011, The Best Science Writing Online 2012 will change the way...
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Batteries to store megawatts of power. Strong magnets that don't rely on rare earths. Turning CO2 into fuel. If you hear about some "game-changing" energy research in the U.S., chances are ARPA-e is behind it.
The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy, or ARPA-e, is intended to invest in high risk, high reward energy research that probably wouldn't be done otherwise.
As it stands the U.S. government spends roughly $4 billion a year on energy research and development. And ARPA-e's budget is just $388 million, despite the broad popularity of such a program. A proposal released this week by the conservative American Enterprise Institute and the liberal Brookings Institution would increase ARPA-e style energy research funding to at least $15 billion a year in a bid to combat climate change and improve energy security.
Instead of that happening, however, ARPA-e is in danger of losing its funding entirely. That means no more money for better ways to capture CO2 and store it or energy efficiency. Which is good news only if you like this summer's oil spill, mountaintop removal mining, catastrophic climate change and the ongoing transfer of wealth from the U.S. to oil-producing countries.
—David Biello
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10 Comments
Add CommentIf it is short-sighted and/or wrong headed, our government will endorse it... if it is big-picture, long-term smart... they will limit it or squish it entirely if possible...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we could manage to educate our populace better, (perhaps funded by arming them less?) the voice for smarter solutions in politics would be stronger...
But I'm not going to bet on it.
If it is short-sighted and/or wrong headed, our government will endorse it... if it is big-picture, long-term smart... they will limit it or squish it entirely if possible...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we could manage to educate our populace better, (perhaps funded by arming them less?) the voice for smarter solutions in politics would be stronger...
But I'm not going to bet on it happening.
No worries. If the US refuses to fund such programs, the rest of the world will move ahead with the technologies, just like they are with stem cell research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDon't like the US falling behind? Write your Congressperson.
Could anyone provide any details as to why the program might lose its funding
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'd been expecting that ARPA-e, as a highly publicized and political funding institution, would never have selected any feasible technology for development, anyway. Perhaps I was just being too optimistic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisA most needed rehash of some very good articles on clean energy. Everyone should call their Congressman and Senators (send them this article) and demand they increase the funding for clean energy and to take that funding from fossil fuel. Fossil fuels have had funding - tax payers money for decades and are still brain dead in how to clean it up or stop destroying the Earth. If we flood our governments with requests for funding for clean energy and threats of not voting for them if they don't comply, then they will listen and we may get that funding we need.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is difficult to understand how anyone would want to continue to pollute our air, pollute our water, and pollute and destroy the land we will need to live on and produce our food on. What kind of warped sick mind would want to continue to do that?
let me get this straight, $900B stimulus for roads and whatever to create jobs, but the surest way towards more high tech jobs (and lower tech jobs as someone has to install these things) will get eliminated. Maybe the govt hasn't heard the saying, give a man a fish and he eats for a day (stimulus), teach him to fish and he eats forever (creating more jobs through research). The funny thing is that the taxes paid by oil companies on their profits could more than easily pay for this research.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@jbairddo
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat taxes? Do you seriously believe that oil companies pay even a tiny fraction of their profits in taxes? Not in this country they don't.
Oil Companies don't pay taxes? Wow, now that is amazing....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisreally - well, as public company we should be able to check that out.
"Investor’s Business Daily — In 2006 alone, according to the American Petroleum Institute, U.S. oil companies paid some $138 billion in taxes to the IRS — and that doesn’t include special oil severance, sales and use taxes companies also had to pay.
Internal Revenue Service (Table 6, p. 41) — In 2005 (the most recent year for which data are available), the bottom 75% of all individual taxpayers (about 100 million taxpayers out of 132 million total) paid about $130.9 billion in income taxes. Adjusting by the recent average of about $5 billion in annual increases in tax revenue from individuals, it is estimated that the bottom 75% of individual taxpayers (more than 100 million individuals) paid about $136 billion in 2006.
Bottom Line: In 2006, U.S. oil companies paid more in corporate income taxes to the IRS ($138 billion) than the individual taxes paid by the more than 100 million individual taxpayers in the bottom 75% of all individual taxpayers (estimated to be $136 billion)."
What say instead griping about the evil capitalists we actually look to the problem.
We have all the money we need for ARPA-e, but it seems people would rather spend it on entitlements, Check out this simple pie chart from the feds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Fy2010_spending_by_category.jpg
While some like to gripe about guns, and capitalists, it's our defense department and capitalists that have permitted a great majority of what we read about in this magazine - our Universities are supported by taxing Capitalists and that is why we bring in 50% of the Nobel prizes for science year after year.
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-countries-have-received-the-most-nobel-prizes.htm
Sorry to tell you this, but it looks to be like Guns, money and freedom make for good science. Write to your representative and demand that the tax dollars from the oil companies go to this program instead of just whining about more money.
ARPA would do well to look up www.eprida.com and help develop 'hydrocarbon pyrolysis'. This converts fossil hydrocarbons into carbon and hydrogen. The carbon goes into landfill avoiding expensive CO2 CCS, and the hydrogen will supply energy with water as the only waste product. Or look up 'biomass pyrolysis' on Wikipedia to see how far commercialisation has got.
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