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The America COMPETES Act, originally enacted in 2007 and  reauthorized in 2010, has helped support the science, technology, and  innovation enterprise that underpins U.S. economic growth. The  impending 2013 Reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act  affords an opportunity to introduce new or extend effective existing  programs and initiatives related to: innovation and technology  commercialization; federal institutional reforms to spur innovation; and  science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education.

The paradigm that defined the U.S. science, technology, and innovation system in the  post-World War II era is simply no longer tenable. That approach was predicated on a “linear model” of innovation that pumped seemingly limitless funding for basic research  into U.S. universities and government labs on the front-end with the expectation that  industry virtually alone would conduct the applied and translational work needed to  transform basic research into technologies and products that could be commercialized (and  manufactured at scale in the United States) on the back-end. That approach also viewed all  scientific research as equal and didn’t prioritize scientific research funding based on its  ability or likelihood to help support U.S. economic competitiveness, which was taken as a  given. While this model worked for a time—when many fewer other nations had the  technological capabilities to translate basic research into commercial products—it’s ill-  suited to today’s intensely competitive global economy. A new approach is needed to  transform the U.S. innovation system, and it should embrace four key principles:

1. Increasing funding is not enough; institutional reform is also needed
2. The prevailing linear innovation approach is ineffective and incomplete
3. The belief that if all policy does is fund basic research that commercialization will naturally come out the other end of the pipeline assumes that there are no barriers or problems
4. Not all scientific research funding is created equal
5. Certain research programs are much more important to our country’s economic
   well-being and competitiveness than others
6. Not all students are likely to become scientists or engineers

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The United States has failed to create a comprehensive energy policy that provides robust and consistent support for innovation. Although the Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 stimulated public investments in energy innovation, many of these programs and incentives have since expired or concluded, leaving the energy innovation ecosystem underfunded and skewed towards supporting deployment incentives over technology R&D, demonstration, and manufacturing.

This report assembles a series of articles first published on Energy Trends Insider, featuring data captured in the Energy Innovation Tracker. ITIF’s Energy Innovation Tracker is a publicly available, transparent, and accessible database of federal   investments in energy innovation at the project level. It was developed to inform the clean energy policy debate by defining federal investments in clean energy innovation by technology, innovation phase, and investment type. Energy policy in the United States is only as good as its innovation‐based goals, framing, and emphasis, so clarifying   past and current support for energy innovation is fundamental to creating the policies of   the future.

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Winning the Race 2012 is a series of ten policy briefs that lay out broad principles and actionable ideas for the next administration to embrace to help the United States win the race for global innovation advantage. The following is the 8th of the 10 policy briefs, focusing on Clean Energy.

Developing and deploying affordable, high‐performance clean energy technologies are one of the great challenges of our time. It’s central to reducing global greenhouse gas emissions, improving the U.S. balance of trade, and bolstering national security. And yet over the last 40  years, U.S. energy policy has been marked by government underinvestment in R&D and prolonged policy debates on what would have ultimately proved to be ineffective carbon pricing schemes. And the recent temporary spike in clean energy investment through the Stimulus was focused too much on deploying  uncompetitive  existing  generations of technologies instead of working to develop better transformative technologies. But implementing new clean energy policy has never felt so far from reality. Political gridlock is   fueled in part by high‐profile bankruptcies of government‐supported clean energy firms that weren’t ready for prime‐time and/or were undercut by Chinese green mercantilist policies. Many on the left have doubled down on their  “green  jobs” narrative by supporting the renewal of subsidies for low‐risk uncompetitive technologies. Many also remain steadfast in support for carbon caps, although some grudgingly have accepted carbon pricing as a second‐best solution.  Meanwhile, many  on  the right insist the private sector will develop cheap energy technologies and that  government  intervention, with perhaps the  exception of a modest, revenue neutral carbon tax, is doomed for failure. The next administration needs to put aside these obsolete assumptions and recognize that transformative, next‐generation clean energy innovation is not going to arise from a price on   carbon, subsidizing what are essentially today’s clean energy “Edsels,” or even the profit motive of an expected $2 trillion‐dollar a year global clean energy market. Instead, developing the needed clean energy breakthroughs requires a national strategy, with significant public investments in R&D and cohesive policies to unleash private sector innovation.

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Like all economic policy debates in the United States, energy and climate  policy is shaped by competing “economic doctrines.” Those who subscribe  to the neoclassical economic doctrine see climate change as a relatively  straightforward problem caused by failing to charge polluters of  greenhouse gases (GHG) for the full costs of their emissions. Once the  price is right, the theory holds, the market will respond appropriately (if it  hasn’t already) and develop the needed solutions. By contrast, those  informed by neo-Keynesian perspectives favor a more direct response,  such as subsidizing renewable energy or requiring its use. Finally, those  supporting the innovation economics doctrine argue that price signals,  regulation and subsidies are insufficient to drive clean energy  transformation. Instead, innovation policies, such as investments in  research and the development and commercialization of next-generation  alternatives, are the best solution.

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Using ITIF’s Energy Innovation Tracker, this report analyzes for the first  time U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) investments in clean energy  innovation. Since FY2009, DOD has invested $5 billion in clean energy  research, development, testing, demonstration, and procurement. DOD  now procures nearly twice as many innovative clean energy technologies as  it does off-the-shelf clean energy technologies. As a result, DOD accounts  for 24 percent of public investments in clean energy innovation in 2012,  second only to the Department of Energy (DOE). While DOE clean  energy investments explicitly target commercial applications, DOD’s  investments aim at fulfilling mission objectives, which limit the potential  for spillover effects into the broader national energy market. Nevertheless,  DOD’s investments are capable of accelerating clean energy innovation in  circumstances when mission-oriented research and procurement align—  namely for biofuels, power electronics, energy storage, and smart grid  technologies.

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In May 2012, the U.S. Department of Commerce preliminarily ruled in favor of a coalition of U.S. solar panel manufacturers’ petition against  China for illegally exporting solar panels at below market rates. A coalition of U.S. wind turbine manufacturers filed a petition asking the Administration to take action against similar Chinese and Vietnamese wind subsidy policies. Both cases are just the latest complaints against  competitor nations that use green mercantilist policies to gain unfair  competitive advantage in the global clean energy industry. Some argue that America should not only turn a blind eye to such policies, but even embrace them because they lower the price of clean energy imports for the  United States, helping both American consumers and the fight against climate change. But the long-term harm of these policies greatly outweighs the short-term benefits. Not only do green mercantilist policies hurt clean energy producers in the United States, they also limit the incentive to invest in innovative, next-generation clean energy technologies, which hurts, not helps, the global community’s ability to reduce the emission of greenhouse gases.

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Kyoto. Copenhagen. Cancún. Now Durban. Don’t expect much when  representatives from nearly 200 countries meet in the South African city  this week to try once again to create an international climate change  agreement. Even if talks succeeded beyond the proponents’ wildest dreams  and every country agreed to carbon emissions targets, it would still not be  a success. Why? Because carbon emission targets alone can’t reduce  greenhouse gas emissions enough—not with the current technology. Like  previous conferences, Durban is likely to overlook the best way to  drastically reduce carbon emissions—making unsubsidized clean energy  cost-competitive with fossil fuels by driving innovation.

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We analyze the evolution of the scientific consensus on anthropogenic global warming (AGW) in the peer-reviewed  scientific literature, examining 11 944 climate abstracts from 1991–2011 matching the topics ‘global climate  change’ or ‘global warming’. We find that 66.4% of abstracts expressed no position on AGW, 32.6% endorsed  AGW, 0.7% rejected AGW and 0.3% were uncertain about the cause of global warming. Among abstracts expressing  a position on AGW, 97.1% endorsed the consensus position that humans are causing global warming. In a second  phase of this study, we invited authors to rate their own papers. Compared to abstract ratings, a smaller percentage of  self-rated papers expressed no position on AGW (35.5%). Among self-rated papers expressing a position on AGW,  97.2% endorsed the consensus. For both abstract ratings and authors’ self-ratings, the percentage of endorsements  among papers expressing a position on AGW marginally increased over time. Our analysis indicates that  the number of papers rejecting the consensus on AGW is a vanishingly small proportion of the published research.

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The national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People  & the Press, conducted Oct. 4-7 among 1,511  adults finds increasing numbers of Democrats,  Republicans and independents saying there is  solid evidence of warming, although there  continues to be a substantial partisan divide on  this issue. Fully 85% of Democrats say there is  solid evidence that the average temperature  has been getting warmer, up from 77% last  year and similar to levels in 2007 and 2008.