The big 'What if?' in the room

I said I would talk a little more about ARPA-E and though I have been reading about its projects with interest it is hard to know where to start. Perhaps that is a positive, it is one of the broadest programs I have seen with funding for potential breakthrough technology in areas ranging from new grid design to carbon capture technology for power plants. The thing I like about this program is that it is seeking to fund revolutionary technology, the type of technology that will probably amount to nothing but could ... change the world.

I think this is just the type of program that government's in my home country (Australia) and my adopted country (UK) would be unlikely to fund. Certainly not on a comparable scale (even relative to their economies), despite the reinvigoration of conservative politics over the last 12 months there are still few (if any) countries on Earth with the appetite for risky innovation as America.

Here's hoping it works!

Oh and check this map out, it gives a great overview of the geographic spread of programs and highlightsthe continued strength of California in US innovation.

The US Government Funds Cutting Edge Research

Though it has been a while since my last post this is not due to a lack of enthusiasm and interest in the opportunity that is climate change. Far from it. I have had a fantastic holiday and then witnessed first hand some of the creativity and ingenuity that humanity will have to show to solve and ultimately benefit from the problems we have created for ourselves. My job took me, in mid July, to the Farnborough International Airshow; not a centre of environmental innovation?

Perhaps.

But it is a centre of human ingenuity. As I watched the F22 hovering in mid air, performing maneuvers even its most recent cousins couldn't dream of I marveled at the genius of humanity. We certainly produce some spectacular things when we turn our mind to war and I know (or at least hope) this same type of genius is turning its attention to technology that will benefit and ultimately save humanity. These are the people working on disruptive technologies in companies we have probably never heard of.

This type of research has always (and probably always will be) a long way behind the funding provided to military research but as the world wakes up to the issue of climate change more funding will be spent in smarter ways. I was particularly impressed to read that the US government is funding ARPA-E, a programs very similar to DARPA's research into speculative military technology. The idea is to fund low 'probability' high 'benefit' research into technology.

I will look more closely at this program in the next few days but think there could be some truly revolutionary outcomes from this approach. It is certainly one of the most exciting funding developments in the energy field for a long time.