Helios said:
Recently Democrat Obama dumped an astronomical motherload of "stimulus money" on the DoE ( Democrat Jimmy Carter's origin ), as well as on other of their bureaucratic comrades. The consequences of this will be suffered for many generations.
This statement is misleading. The increase in funding of DOE is not astronomical.
In 1977, DOE was formed from a consolidation of existing organizations. A precursor, ERDA was formed under the Ford administration.
THE ENERGY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT ADMINISTRATION (ERDA)
Following the "Energy Crisis" of the early 1970s, the Nation recognized the need to expand research and development activities involving alternative forms of energy, and to reorganize nuclear energy regulation. In 1975, the AEC was replaced by the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which was created to focus the federal government's energy research development activities into one unified agency, which was also to include AEC's nuclear energy defense activities. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) was also created out of remaining parts of the AEC's mission. Chicago Operations Office became part of the new ERDA incorporating AEC's R&D functions, including basic research and nuclear power development, and an assortment of other federal agencies' fossil, solar and alternate energy research, development and demonstration activities.
http://www.ch.doe.gov/html/site_info/energy_research.htm
THE DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY (DOE)
In 1977 the Administration and Congress acted to further consolidate federal energy policy, R&D, and nuclear energy defense functions. ERDA was integrated with the Federal Energy Administration and other federal energy functions to create a Cabinet-level U.S. Department of Energy. The governmental elements brought together to form DOE included the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission; the Economic Regulatory Administration; the automotive research and development sections of the Environmental Protection Agency; Solar Research and Development from the National Science Foundation; and Fossil Energy and Development from the Department of the Interior's Office of Coal Research, as well as several Power Administrations.
http://www.ch.doe.gov/html/site_info/department_energy.htm
The DOE does basic research and development that industry does not do or does not want to do because R&D are considered overhead. Industry prefers that DOE fund the research based on personal experience. One energy related company used to have about 5000 employees in its reasearch center. Now it has a few hundred. The same company lost more than $5 billion during the 1980s speculating in real estate. It sold off divisions it did not consider profitable. Those divisions were profitable and become viable businesses on their own. Stockholders lost billions, but management did well considering how poorly they did.
