Energy research should get a huge boost in the next few years under the Obama administration, whether or not economic and political factors prevent him from keeping his campaign promise of $150 billion over 10 years for alternative energy research, development and deployment.
In shaping our research priorities, one issue is how to balance short-term and long-term needs. The climate crisis in particular screams for immediate action. At the same time, the decisions we make in the next few years could shape the country’s energy systems for the rest of the century.
In a talk Wednesday at MIT (slides from earlier version), Patricia Dehmer, Deputy Director for Science Programs at the U.S. Department of Energy, noted that 18th and 19th century inventions (steam engine, incandescent light bulb, internal combustion engine) shaped the country’s infrastructure (intercontinental rail system, electricity grid, interstate highway system). This, in turn, determines the fuels we use today.
Dehmer has advocated for a greater focus on basic research as the cornerstone of a “decades-to-century” energy strategy. She also said that basic research is our best hope for accelerating adoption of renewable energy technologies.
Technologies like photovoltaics have seen continuous rates of improvement that are too gradual for the technologies to have a major impact in the near-term. We need revolutionary basic research discoveries to break renewable energy technologies into the mainstream.
Disruptive technologies derive from greater control of matter, said Dehmer. Her push for basic research led to a DOE report that identified the key challenges in controlling matter. It also led to the Energy Frontier Research Centers initiative that will fund research tackling those challenges.
Government research organizations, most notably DARPA, have shifted focus away from basic research in recent years. Let’s hope the flood of resources poised to sweep into energy research fuels a renaissance of basic research, and that our desperation doesn’t lead to shortsighted priorities.
[...] Though different in tone, Khosla’s talk reminded me of Patricia Dehmer’s talk earlier this month at MIT (see previous post). She said that the cost-efficiency trajectories of today’s renewable energy technologies won’t bring them into mainstream use. She said we need breakthroughs in basic research to alter the fundamental economics of the technologies. [...]