The National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2001 that a handful of clean energy technologies returned about $30 billion on an R&D investment of about $400 million. The United States is an amazing venture capitalist when it comes to clean energy R&D...
....the Post uses the $172 billion figure to create outrage over how much the federal government has spent on energy research, but the overwhelming majority of it didn’t go to energy efficiency and renewables. The Post makes the briefest passing mention to a key point:
Many policy experts say some of government’s biggest energy investment payoffs have come in the small stuff, such as testing the use of magnesium alloys to make lightweight car batteries more efficient or developing ballasts that make compact fluorescent bulbs more efficient.
Actually, it isn’t just “many policy experts” who says this, it is the National Academy of Sciences, among others. And their findings invalidate the Post’s entire analysis. Here’s the back story at http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2011/11/13/367252/clean-energy-return-federal-program/
