At this week’s ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington, D.C., politicians from both sides of the aisle, together with environmentalists and business leaders, will do something unusual—they’ll agree on something. They’ll all sing the praises of ARPA-E, the agency created in 2009 to fund the development of early stage energy technologies. But what could get lost in all the laudatory remarks is the fact that ARPA-E won’t solve our major energy challenges and can’t fulfill its mission alone.
That mission has always been limited. Its authorizing legislation directs it to identify promising advances in labs and give them a boost, enough to demonstrate the potential to private investors. A small company or university lab that has discovered a promising material, for example, might be funded to produce a working prototype battery or solar cell. But ARPA-E was explicitly not supposed to take over for venture capitalists in commercializing technology. The agency invests only in projects that are too risky for private investors.
To read the full, original article click on this link: What the Agency for Energy Innovation, ARPA-E, Can’t Do | MIT Technology Review
