[UPDATE, 10/25: The Energy Department’s nascent Advanced Research Projects – Energy effort is announcing its first awards on Monday. Click here to get to the list of awardees, assess their “transformational” potential and post comments.]
Martin Hoffert, an emeritus physics professor at New York University, has long made the case that a powerful push is needed in basic inquiry — comprising the first two steps in the research, development, demonstration, deployment chain — to supply non-polluting energy to humanity as it heads toward 9 billion people. He and his “discouraged” proposal seeking Energy Department financing (for a test of pumping solar power from orbit to Earth) were the focus of a piece on Clean Skies TV this week. The segment examines the department’s initial round of selections for projects to be financed under the new Advanced Research Projects, Energy, initiative. (I’m in the video report, too, but just to set the context).
I asked the Department of Energy for some input on how it winnowed down the 3,500 applicants who submitted outlines of energy projects, 40 to 60 of whom will get $3 million to $5 million later this year to pursue their visions of an energy revolution. On Monday, I’ll post comments from Matt Rogers, the senior adviser helping Energy Secretary Steven Chu target money available to the department under the economic stimulus bill. He’s constrained from discussing specific “encouraged” research teams, who are now busily finalizing full applications, due by the end of this month. But one of the department’s choices — a concept for harvesting the heat in parking lots and other paved areas — has already made news.
Which project strikes you as “transformational,” to use the Energy Department’s term for what the country needs?