America needs to transform its energy system, and the Great Lakes region (including, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, Kentucky, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania and western New York) possesses many of the needed innovation assets. For that reason, the federal government should leverage this troubled region’s research and engineering strengths by launching a region-wide network of collaborative, high intensity energy research and innovation centers.
Currently, U.S. energy innovation efforts remain insufficient to ensure the development and deployment of clean energy technologies and processes. Such deployment is impeded by multiple market problems that lead private firms to under-invest and to focus on short-term, low-risk research and product development. Federal energy efforts—let alone state and local ones—remain too small and too poorly organized to deliver the needed breakthroughs. A new approach is essential.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Hubs of Transformation: Leveraging the Great Lakes Research Complex for Energy Innovation - Brookings Institution
Author: James J. Duderstadt, Professor Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering, University of Michigan
Mark Muro, Fellow and Policy Director, Metropolitan Policy Program
Sarah Rahman, Policy Analyst, Metropolitan Policy Program
