American innovation faces its biggest test for decades

In the dark hours of the second world war, scientists of the Manhattan Project worked secretly in the hills of Tennessee. This month, tucked in those same hills, scientists at Oak Ridge National Laboratory sat listening to their new mission. Thomas Mason, Oak Ridge’s director, stood beside a slide show, letting its contents sink in. The budget for the Department of Energy (DoE), a chart showed, was $24.2 billion in 2008. This year Congress gave the DoE $38.7 billion in the stimulus package and another $27 billion in appropriations. Mr Mason’s main message was simple: “We’ve really got to deliver.”

Politicians have been making noises about energy independence and climate change for some time. Federal spending on research and development, however, has remained far below the levels of the 1970s (see chart). Now rhetoric is finally being matched by cash. Within the DoE’s budget, Congress has appropriated $7.8 billion for energy R&D, 18% more than last year, and the stimulus provided about $8 billion. On March 23rd President Barack Obama and Steven Chu, the energy secretary, explained how some of the money would be spent, with money for labs—a new building at Oak Ridge will house researchers for solar batteries and superconducting transmission lines—as well as support for scientists exploring everything from carbon sequestration to hydrogen. Spending money, however, is easy. Results require hard work.

The Manhattan Project yielded the atomic bomb; the Apollo programme sent a man to the moon. Mr Obama’s goal to cut emissions by 80% by 2050 is at least as ambitious. Meeting this deadline will require not just a price on carbon and the wide adoption of existing technology, but inventions that are still just a glimmer in someone’s eye. Making matters more complex, new innovations must be deployed by companies and used by the public. The atomic bomb and the space shuttle had the government as their only customer.

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An unusual energy source gets a try-out

Earlier this month engineers at Public Service of New Hampshire, the state’s largest electric utility, successfully tested a novel fuel mixture for one of its electricity-generating boilers: coal tempered with cocoa-bean shells. Hedonists have long rhapsodised about the seductive power of chocolate; now cocoa power may light homes as well.

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What’s wrong with policies on waste, and how to get them right

Corbis

At Pope’s creek, on America’s Potomac river, there’s a pre-Columbian rubbish tip of oyster shells covering 30 acres, to an average depth of ten feet. Humanity has always produced waste in vast quantities; but more people, more consumption and the contribution emissions from rubbish make to climate change mean that disposing of the stuff is an increasingly contentious issue.

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Home to a green-minded people and government, Norway exports the dirty stuff to the rest of the world. The result is a contradiction

On the shores of a glittering fjord, in the shadow of craggy mountains, right at the heart of Norway, stands a new factory belonging to a firm called NorSun. Inside, blond technicians in goggles tease metres-long crystals out of vats of liquid silicon and slice them into the thinnest of wafers, to be used in solar panels. The power for the factory is as pristine as the surroundings: it comes from a nearby hydroelectric plant. “It’s a nice idea,” says Cecilie Holst, one of the employees, “making solar panels with clean energy.”

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Electric propulsion provides some excitement amid the gloom

THE sombre mood at this year’s Detroit motor show manifested itself most visibly in the austerity of the exhibitors’ displays, and Chrysler’s in particular. Over the years the smallest of America’s Big Three manufacturers has introduced new models by driving a sport-utility vehicle through the plate-glass windows of the Cobo Hall, dropping a pickup from the roof and firing a minivan through the air. But having just received a life-saving government bail-out, Chrysler did not want to appear extravagant. Gone were the over-the-top stunts and computer-controlled fountains. Instead it opted for a simple exhibit that resembled a giant showroom.

A beacon in the darkness

General Motors (GM), the recipient of its own bail-out, also opted for the corporate hair shirt. Ford, the strongest of the Big Three, was careful not to appear too flashy. And even the Japanese carmakers, wary of reviving protectionist sentiments, took a low-key approach. Only the Germans were in a party mood. Some carmakers, including Nissan, Land Rover and Porsche, did not attend the show at all—understandably, given the collapse of America’s car market during 2008.

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