Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
ARPA-E plays an important role in the U.S. energy innovation ecosystem. We're all here
to solve the three problems that Congress told us to solve: weaning ourselves off of
foreign energy sources, increasing energy efficiency in the US, and reducing emissions
related to energy use. When we talk about changing what's possible, it's not just the
technologies. It's actually the approach to research, and it's the approach to engaging
the broad energy community in moving things from ARPA-E onto the next part of the development
cycle of energy technologies. We're investing in the best people, the best small companies,
and the best ideas, to bring entirely new energy technologies to market. The best thing
that we can have is a suite of different options, because it's risky, and it's hard, and we're
not foolish enough to think that we can prescribe the solution upfront. Our role as ARPA-E is
to fund early stage technology development before the private sector is willing to get
involved. We're trying to remove enough of the technical risk so the private sector and
industry can pick it up and run with it. ARPA-E is not about just identifying some big new
problem. I think the problems in energy are pretty well known. ARPA-E's unique piece of
this is framing the problem in a way that it has not been framed before, and therefore
you bring different people to the table with different eyes on the solution. We're trying
to engage people that are really brilliant, pushing them to get out of their comfort zone,
and really thinking about the problems in a very innovative way. It's something that
is very distinctive of us as an agency. We're asking to cross disciplinary boundaries to
really come up with new approaches to difficult problems in energy. We would run into folks
who would stop us and say, "You know, I have been working on this field of chemistry for
20 years, and I never knew that my work could be so important for the energy problem." We
actually go on site with all of our performers multiple times a year, and we spend a substantial
amount of time with the research teams trying to brainstorm with them how they might solve
their problem. It's a real true partnership. That all starts out with you and your team,
but it goes beyond that. We ask questions like, "Let's say you're wildly successful.
How much could you imagine this technology costing? How cheap could it be? Is it going
to be good enough to actually move the needle based on what we have?" And we look at each
part of the lifecycle through the lens of, "If it works, will it matter?" Just because
some of them will likely not be successful, doesn't mean it's not worth going for it.
And a lot of those things that might not be the home run, still teach us a lot about how
to ask the next question. I think the impact that we make as an agency goes way beyond
developing technologies and commercializing them, but also educating and developing a
community that can be leveraged again and again. Our success really depends on engaging
the broad community in what's possible, and having them believe that it's plausible that
this can move all the way to the market and change things for future generations.