Did anyone else watch the Daily Show episode where Jon Stewart interviewed Joe Biden? Jon Stewart asked why aren't we building a project like the Hoover Dam? That's the image that comes to my mind when I hear people talking about green jobs.
The Hoover Dam was conceptualized by Herbert Hoover in 1922, and authorized in 1930 so he does get some credit for it. I've bashed him before here and was told that I was being unfair to him, as he had better intentions than current Republican leaders. Matt's link records that the dam cost about $49 million in 1936 dollars, or a current value of more than $675 million in 2007.
So far, Arpa-E has been allocated two rounds of funding. The first round was announced April of last year and covered $150 million in projects, and the second round was announced in December just before the Copenhagen conference.
Searching around the Arpa-E site shows that most of the projects were granted about $5 million in Recovery Act funds, and with a matching percentage of 20% for corporations and 10% for universities or nonprofits these are all sizable projects. This is a combined total of $250 million, which is less than half of what the Hoover Dam cost, although there is still a possibility to have additional rounds of funding.
Mandatory funding requirements bring the total available for the projects up to $300 million, or more depending on the R+D budget of the grant receiver. So it is also possible to influence these projects by encouraging the awardee to spend more, if they think it would strengthen their brand.
On the White House Energy Blog Steven Chu says that “We are trying to hit home runs, not base hits.” The post links to a company that is attempting to use a synthetic process to replicate photosynthesis, so hydrogen can be separated from water and used to power fuel cells. The Secretary also gave another speech today at Stanford about The Global Clean Energy Challenge. Many of these technologies will not be cost competitive until it is too late and we run out of easily extractable oil. The urgency of this impending shortage has convinced the administration to make some drastic compromises, as you might have heard mentioned in the State of the Union. We need to make this a top priority.