Articles

Accelerating innovation in clean energy technologies is a policy priority for governments around the world aiming to mitigate climate change and to provide affordable energy. Most research has focused on the role of governments financing R&D and steering market demand, but there is a more limited understanding of the role of direct government interactions with startups across all sectors. The authors  propose and evaluate the value-creation mechanisms of network resources from different types of partners for startups, highlighting the unique resources of government partners for cleantech startups. 

Ryan Snyder and Benoît Pelopidas respond to Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press's spring 2017 article, “The New Era of Counterforce: Technological Change and the Future of Nuclear Deterrence.”

The authors raise for debate and discussion what in their opinion is a growing mis-control and mis-protection of U.S. energy research. They outline the origin of this mis-control and mis-protection, and propose two guiding principles to mitigate them and instead nurture research: (1) focus on people, not projects; and (2) culturally insulate research from development, but not science from technology.

In Aesop's fable, a swift hare races with a deliberate tortoise. In the end, the tortoise wins by taking a slow and steady approach. The authors argue that, given the economic constraints on US deployment of nuclear power, a "tortoise strategy" is more prudent for US government nuclear R&D efforts.

There is a sharp boundary between basic and applied research in the organizational structure of the US Department of Energy (DOE). In this work, the authors consider a branch of DOE that was designed to operate across this boundary: the Advanced Research Projects Agency — Energy (ARPA-E). They hypothesize that much of energy research cannot be neatly categorized as basic or applied and is more productive outside of the confines of the basic/applied dichotomy; ARPA-E provides an opportunity to test that hypothesis.

If we had the technology to detect nuclear materials remotely it could help deter smuggling and make it easier to monitor international nuclear agreements. Several recent breakthroughs, if followed up with continued research and funding, could deliver on this promise. They include technological advances in x-ray and neutron radiography; a method that measures how plasma breaks down when exposed to a radioactive source; and developments in antineutrino detection. While all require more development and testing, they are important steps as the global need for ways to detect nuclear materials grows.

The world's energy system needs rebuilding. The Paris agreement to keep global warming “well below 2 °C above pre-industrial levels” demands that we replace fossil fuels with solar, wind, geothermal and biomass energy. The price tag is vast: investing US$120 trillion in energy projects between 2016 and 2050, at twice the current annual rate of $1.8 trillion a year, will deliver a 66% chance of achieving the Paris target. We must halve oil production and stop using coal to produce electricity.

The German energy transition—or Energiewende—stands out globally as one of the most prominent and widely discussed plans to transform an energy system. However, the ways in which Germany can and does promote the diffusion of its model remain to be systematically reviewed. Aiming at closing this gap, this article develops an analytical framework for "leadership by diffusion" and applies it to the Energiewende.