Indeed, ARPA-E has funded hundreds of the riskiest, newest energy-related technologies in its 10 years. “I’m talking about the agency being able to move quickly to capitalize on opportunity… we’re supposed to anticipate technology, go for the really far-out stuff,” and “teach others what’s important,” Fall said. "For those big programs, it takes a long time to turn that battleship." Advertisement But the deputy director also defended his agency’s practices, saying that ARPA-E is better equipped to spark new technology development, unlike grant programs. In a conversation with Ars after the keynote speech, Fall said that the agency can always find areas for growth-it had to be faster and nimbler. "We are at a crossroads," Fall said, "but until we’re told to do something different, we need to keep thinking about the future." Can ARPA-E funding be replaced by more traditional grants? "We’re supposed to act as the special forces for science and technology."įor now, the agency is adopting a "keep calm and carry on" attitude. Fall argued that ARPA-E's mission is that of its similarly named kin. "You’re hard-pressed to find anyone who complains about the existence of DARPA," Fall said in a keynote address on Tuesday morning. Instead they say the agency, with its relatively modest $309 million budget, serves a purpose distinct from traditional grant funding and private research and development funding. (By comparison, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, received nearly $3 billion in 2017.) The Trump administration has argued for ARPA-E's elimination on the grounds that the US federal government doesn't need another grant program, and, if the technology is sufficiently economic, private industry will fund its development without government dollars.īut ARPA-E Deputy Director Chris Fall and Norm Augustine, a co-chair on the American Energy Innovation Council and one of the leaders behind ARPA-E's inception, dispute that characterization.
In the face of that uncertainty, the agency's annual summit still convened in Washington, DC, this week, and its leaders addressed the crowd of scientists and entrepreneurs with words that seemed to be more for administration higher-ups than for the choir to whom they preached.
But last year, a Republican-led Congress actually voted to increase the agency's budget from its 2016 levels.īut until Congress passes a new budget, the fate of ARPA-E is uncertain. The Trump administration has, for two years in a row, recommended that ARPA-E be defunded and mothballed. Today, the agency may be living on borrowed time. WASHINGTON, DC-Ten years ago, a bipartisan group of lawmakers created ARPA-E, or the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy.
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