Transforming US Energy Innovation

Description

One of the greatest challenges facing human civilization is the provision of secure, affordable energy without causing catastrophic environmental damage. As the world's largest economy, and as a world leader in energy technologies, the United States is a particularly important case. In the light of increased competition from other countries (particularly China), growing concerns about the local and global environmental impacts of the energy system, an ever-present interest in energy security, and the realization that technological innovation takes place in a complex ecosystem involving a wide range of domestic and international actors, this volume provides a comprehensive and analytical assessment of the role that the US government should play in energy technology innovation. It will be invaluable for policy makers in energy innovation and for researchers studying energy innovation, future energy technologies, climate-change mitigation, and innovation management. It will act as a supplementary textbook for courses on energy and innovation.

Laura Diaz Anadon is Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, and Associate Director of the Science Technology and Public Policy Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Her research focuses on energy- and environment-oriented technological progress and on the role of government policy. Her articles have been published in a variety of journals, including Environmental Science and Technology, Energy Economics, Research Policy, and Issues in Science and Technology. She was on the advisory board of the Accelerating Energy Innovation Project at the International Energy Agency and has been a consultant for various international organizations and government officials around the world on policy for energy innovation. Matthew Bunn is Professor of Practice at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. His research interests include policies for energy innovation, nuclear theft and terrorism, nuclear proliferation and measures to control it, and the future of nuclear energy and its fuel cycle. Before Harvard, Bunn served as an advisor to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, as a study director at the National Academy of Sciences, and as editor of Arms Control Today. He is the author or co-author of more than twenty books and major technical reports and more than a hundred articles in publications ranging from Science to the Washington Post. He is an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a recipient of the Joseph A. Burton Forum Award from the American Physical Society, and the recipient of the Hans A. Bethe Award from the Federation of American Scientists for science in service to a more secure world. He serves on the Nuclear Energy Advisory Committee of the US Department of Energy. Venky Narayanamurti is the Benjamin Peirce Professor of Technology and Public Policy and Professor of Physics at Harvard University. He has previously served as director of the Solid State Electronics Research Laboratory at Bell Labs; Vice President for Research and Exploratory Technology at Sandia National Laboratories; Dean of Engineering at the University of California, Santa Barbara; and founding dean of the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University. He has been elected to memberships in the National Academy of Engineering, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences. He has served on numerous advisory boards for the federal government, research universities, national laboratories, and industry. These have included chair of the Inertial Confinement Fusion Advisory Committee of the US Department of Energy; chair of the Committee of Visitors of the Division of Materials Research, National Science Foundation; member of the President's Council for the University of California Managed National Laboratories; member of the Governing Board of Brookhaven National Laboratory; and the Brains Trust of ARPA-E of the US Department of Energy.

'... this volume is an invaluable addition to a wider energy innovation literature that can, and should, be read by US policy-makers, particularly at the federal level. It is an account of how the US federal government has been responding to the need for [research, development and demonstration] RD&D in the energy sector. It is a critical analysis of how the RD&D aspect of US energy innovation, especially its ever-changing political dynamics can be accelerated. It also offers a thorough discussion of how RD&D could be systematically facilitated through a structured approach. It is a concise, well-focused study of the RD&D aspect of a rather complex and messy energy innovation system.' Laurence L. Delina, Journal Science and Public Policy