An Energy No-Brainer

Center for Progressive Reform 2013-04-24

Summary:

Reposted from Legal Planet, by permisison. There are a lot of things to disagree about in terms of energy policy. One thing that ought to be common ground, as discussed in a Washington Post column, is increased research in energy R&D. As this chart shows, federal support for energy R&D is smaller than it was under Ronald Reagan: The economic argument for supporting R&D is simple. Private firms don't have enough of an incentive to engage in basic research because intellectual property law doesn't allow them to capture the full benefits of the resource. For that reason, government support for the research is necessary. Moreover, really new ideas have a high risk factor that may make them unattractive to private investors (a problem addressed by the ARPA-E program.)

Link:

http://www.progressivereform.org/CPRBlog.cfm?idBlog=3CEEAE90-0BE5-858E-D0E602CD58FD0F6B

From feeds:

Berkeley Law Library -- Reference & Research Services ยป Center for Progressive Reform

Tags:

Authors:

Daniel Farber

Date tagged:

04/24/2013, 16:50

Date published:

04/24/2013, 13:44