Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
foresight. Operationally, a well-funded R&D community tends to garner inan-
cial and political power, which helps ensure a priority stake over future R&D
provisions. For example, despite staunch public opposition to nuclear power,
up until the Fukushima disaster, technocrats within Germany's political sys-
tem managed to keep the nation's nuclear power sector aloat. his is also
the case in Japan and in Canada's province of Ontario, where despite public
opposition to nuclear power, a political commitment to nuclear power per-
sists. In the United States and China, public support for the coal industry is
being perpetuated in the form of public funding of CCS technology research.
Generally speaking, the tendency for R&D funding to be path depen-
dent tends to work against wind power development because conventional
energy technologies have historically received the lion's share of govern-
ment R&D. However, there is evidence that once the trend has been broken
by funds shifting from one technology to another, the new technological
recipient tends to enjoy a similar level of entrenched support. For example,
in Denmark, strong support for wind power development has nurtured a
government R&D climate that favors further wind power R&D and resists
funding technologies such as solar power which have less of a commercial
allure. In Germany, the Fukushima crisis was the decisive cut that severed
government support for nuclear power. Consequently, support for wind
power R&D has become ampliied and wind power has become the new
technology wunderkind for government assistance.
Interestingly, even when political regimes change, energy regimes tend
to endure. One explanation for this is that electricity networks are costly
assets and inancing a signiicant departure from status quo can impair a
government's eicacy in other areas which need inancing. Consequently,
the adage “if it ain't broke, don't ix it” tends to guide energy policy. Impetus
for change arises only under circumstances of obvious need (i.e., Germany's
decision to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster) or when
investment requirements for facilitating a technological transition are
roughly on par with the investment requirements for maintaining current
technological platforms. herefore, in most nations, seeing small progres-
sive shifts of government R&D into promising technologies is more likely
than seeing massive paradigm shifts in what is funded.
In attempting to craft efective wind power development policy, a review
of public R&D initiatives provides an indication of how much resistance
there will be to facilitating a transition to wind power. In nations such as
the United States, China, Canada, and Germany, where coal-ired power has
historically enjoyed high levels of government support, it may be necessary
to concede support to CCS research in order to appease coal advocates and
avert damaging pushback from conventional technology stakeholders.
