Wesley Mouch Award

Is Steve Chu the American Lysenko?

From Chemical and Engineering News, 11/10/2008:

“Nearly a decade ago, [Robert] Fri oversaw a National Research Council study that examined 25 years of DOE-funded R&D. It found that 75% of the research returns on investments from energy R&D projects could be traced to three projects that took up a mere 0.03% of the overall R&D spending. In addition, the study found that half the overall investments generated no returns.”

What I fail to understand is how focusing 100% of funding for alternative energy source research into electric car research and development even addresses the problem of finding alternative energy sources in any substantive manner.

How is most electricity generated? By electric companies using coal and gas generators, right? While there may be some minimal incremental benefits in terms of economies of scale and reductions in energy transmission power loss/efficiency, all changing cars from gas to electric does is centralize the the energy issues from individual gas and oil consumers into electric companies - it does nothing to address discovering or creating alternative energy sources to replace the fixed and dwindling coal and oil resources.

Silly politicians...

Finding out that 0.03% of R&D spending gives 75% of the result isn't disturbing, in and of itself. My mutual fund might invest in ten losers and one winner, but if that winner goes up 20-fold it's all good. It's the results that matter.

To Dan Weber:

Your mutual fund isn't betting taxpayers' $$ when it rolls the dice!