NASA-style multiplier effect from clean energy programs?

As we fondly recall the historic Apollo 11 space mission 40 years ago, as well as the overall success of the space program, I’m wondering if history can repeat itself. Can government funding being heaped on clean energy have a positive “multiplier” effect like the heyday of funding for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) did all those years ago?

The investment in the space program not only brought us better spacecraft, but is also widely credited with helping fuel the growth of computing and the current digital age. As detailed in this CNET article, NASA had deep ties to Silicon Valley, boosting companies such as Fairchild Semiconductor (the founders of Intel, including Gordon Moore, came from Fairchild) and Hewlett Packard.

Back in 1969, few could envision the multiplier effect springing from NASA’s investments in microelectronics. I remember having one of my high school history teachers declare back in my sophomore year of 1975 that the only public benefit to come out the space program was the Teflon frying pan. I guess I don’t blame him–he was trying to provoke thought, and the digital age was still years away from entering most anyone’s consciousness.

Today, we are putting significant public money into clean energy. While I’m hopeful that this funding will bring side benefits such as a flourishing, U.S.-based, clean-tech manufacturing sector, I was pleased to find out that the government has put in place an organization that should help do just that. Called the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), it is styled after the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the agency that supported the development of technologies such as stealth aircraft and the Internet.

I heard about ARPA-E from an environmental organization called Clean Air-Cool Planet, which recently published a report about the program called, “ARPA-E: An Energy Future Transformed.” The report mainly is aimed at ways government can improve the running of the program, as opposed to how industry can take part, but it’s a good read nonetheless for anyone wanting to find out more about the program’s structure and goals. And as the report points out on pages 7-8, ARPA-E will engage in “transformational research & development” to bridge the gap from raw R&D where much uncertainty exists as to commercial potential, to a stage where “the remaining uncertainties are manageable by the next-stage developer.”

ARPA-E is fairly new, having been authorized by Congress in 2007. According to the Clean Air-Cool Planet report, in 2009, the Obama Administration included $400 million to launch the agency as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Hopefully, ARPA-E will help bridge the gap between raw research to commercial possibilities in much the same way that DARPA, and in a more indirect way, like NASA funding did. It’s certainly a program that manufacturers interested in clean tech opportunities should be aware of. It’s one thing to be hopeful about possible multiplier effects from raw research, but it’s reassuring to see an organization like ARPA-E being put in place to bring about such effects. What these advances will be, I don’t know, but my bet is that it will be more than a better frying pan.