New Energy Agency Offers Oil Independence
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), led by Secretary Stephen Chu, recently changed course and cut $100 million in federal funding on fuel cell engine research.
Critics of the prior administration’s expenditure of billions of dollars in what many viewed as an unnecessarily complicated and impractical technology were relieved and left to wonder where we will go from here.
Chu’s answer reflects a new course and a sense of urgency from the Obama administration. Chu has created the Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy (ARPA-E) to support “transformational energy technologies.”
This agency recognizes that it is time to focus our limited resources on the promising innovations and technologies that have previously languished in what Chu calls the “Valley of Death,” caught between the “proof of concept” phase of development and the commercialization phase that requires significant capital investment.
Changing Lanes
Since U.S. automobile manufacturers have not developed high efficiency vehicles and now find themselves at a competitive disadvantage versus foreign manufacturers, the federal government has had to step in and assume financial control of our automotive industry. As a significant owner, the government can now redirect our automotive industry to support strategically important transformational technologies. ARPA-E has, in effect, stepped in to identify these new technologies and subsequently nurture them by providing the funding and support that the automotive industry was unable to provide.
Back in April, ARPA-E requested technology concept papers for funding. The request specifically addressed small companies that have not typically done business with the federal government. Thus, ARPA-E is looking to identify and fund strategic technologies that industry has either ignored or refused to support.
The ARPA-E process deviated from the traditional DOE funding process by creating an expedited 15- to 30-day review process. In addition, ARPA-E offered to fund projects as high as $20 million, as compared to the previous funding amounts under the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) Phase I limited to only $100,000. ARPA-E has therefore positioned itself as the modern day Apollo/Manhattan project office, aimed at solving the United States’s strategic energy crisis. They will do this by financially seeding strategic transformational energy technologies, thus bridging the “Valley of Death.”
It should be our hope that there is broad support at both the federal and state levels for ARPA-E.
As ARPA-E expands to the level of a NASA effort, requiring the commitment of billions if not trillions of dollars to retool industry, the country needs to be solidly united behind a solutions-driven effort to reduce our dependency on foreign oil.
Our automotive manufacturing industry has been struggling for a very long time, and we should hasten to put our investment and energy behind the technologies that are most productive in solving these energy issues and creating competitive advantage.
Chu’s strategic decision to create ARPA-E paves the way out of the “Valley of Death” for many of those innovations and puts the US on firmer ground to regain its historic technology leadership position.
John Fox is president of Sanderson Engine Development in Upton, which successfully built and tested engine prototypes for development of a 100-mile per gallon vehicle.
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