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Clean Technology Innovation Is in Decline
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/604278/clean-technology-innovation-is-in-decline/[font face=Serif][font size=5]Clean Technology Innovation Is in Decline[/font]
[font size=4]The last two years have been slow for green energy patents, and plans to cut federal R&D could make that a real problem.[/font]
by Jamie Condliffe | April 26, 2017
[font size=3]These last two years, we’ve been having fewer green technology ideas.
At least that’s according to a new study by the Brookings Institution, which reveals that the number of clean energy patents granted in America has declined since 2014. While the number of new patents per year doubled between 2001 and 2014, it has since fallen by 9 percent (see chart below). You can explore the data in detail using this interactive tool.
What's going on? For one thing, there’s currently little financial incentive to develop new clean energy technologies—it’s still far easier to make money by developing, say, consumer-facing technologies than it is to turn a profit with new kinds of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, or nuclear reactors. But Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director at Brookings, points out that it may also coincide with Obama’s Recovery Act, a 2009 stimulus package that poured $27 billion into energy efficiency and renewables research, running dry.
…
In isolation, the news wouldn’t be too concerning: a 9 percent dip over two years could just be a short-lived blip that soon rebounds. But in the current political climate it could prove cause for concern, as the Trump administration has proposed big cuts to federal energy research and the complete closure of the Department of Energy’s moonshot unit, ARPA-E. If those plans go ahead, says Muro, the decline in innovation could “prompt serious worries.”
…[/font][/font]
[font size=4]The last two years have been slow for green energy patents, and plans to cut federal R&D could make that a real problem.[/font]
by Jamie Condliffe | April 26, 2017
[font size=3]These last two years, we’ve been having fewer green technology ideas.
At least that’s according to a new study by the Brookings Institution, which reveals that the number of clean energy patents granted in America has declined since 2014. While the number of new patents per year doubled between 2001 and 2014, it has since fallen by 9 percent (see chart below). You can explore the data in detail using this interactive tool.
What's going on? For one thing, there’s currently little financial incentive to develop new clean energy technologies—it’s still far easier to make money by developing, say, consumer-facing technologies than it is to turn a profit with new kinds of batteries, solar panels, wind turbines, or nuclear reactors. But Mark Muro, senior fellow and policy director at Brookings, points out that it may also coincide with Obama’s Recovery Act, a 2009 stimulus package that poured $27 billion into energy efficiency and renewables research, running dry.
…
In isolation, the news wouldn’t be too concerning: a 9 percent dip over two years could just be a short-lived blip that soon rebounds. But in the current political climate it could prove cause for concern, as the Trump administration has proposed big cuts to federal energy research and the complete closure of the Department of Energy’s moonshot unit, ARPA-E. If those plans go ahead, says Muro, the decline in innovation could “prompt serious worries.”
…[/font][/font]
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