Paul Runci
October, 2005
- In most industrialized countries energy R&D investment has fallen sharply from peak levels in the early 1980s. Since the mid-1990s, aggregate energy R&D levels have stabilized or grown moderately in several key countries, including the U.S., Japan, and Germany, although even in these countries investments remain far below their historic high levels.
- Historically, nuclear energy R&D programs have accounted for a majority of public sector funding for energy R&D in IEA countries. Correspondingly, nuclear (fission) energy R&D programs have experienced the largest investment declines since the early 1980s. Japan is the only industrialized country in which public sector support for nuclear energy R&D has grown consistently and in which current funding levels exceed those of the early 1980s.
- The United States and Japan are the dominant public sector supporters of energy R&D, currently and historically. The combined funding of the U.S. and Japanese governments exceeds by approximately 500% the combined support of the other nine industrialized countries surveyed in this report. Measured as a percentage of GDP, however, energy R&D investment in the U.S. ranks fifth among the eleven countries surveyed, while Japan ranks first.
- Governments now are acting more selectively in the allocation of more limited energy R&D resources, directing funds to specific, emerging technology areas. Moreover, with a growing focus on technology deployment outside the U.S., particularly in Europe, a full array of policy instruments including tax incentives, deployment subsidies, portfolio standards, and regulations is being used to accelerate the use of new, non-fossil energy technologies.
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