Geoscience Reference
In-Depth Information
Ivory Tower
Jungle of the
market place
Valley of Death for Innovations
Figure 40.
Few innovations survive the transition from scientifi c laboratories to the
marketplace.
have been made, their features are likely to be widely known and
appropriable by others, and patent protection may be too weak to
deter their use in others' R&D projects.
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How can we increase the survival rate of sound innovations across
the Valley of Death? First, the global warming externality must be
eliminated by having an appropriate price for carbon. As an additional
incentive, governments might provide extra tax credits for precompeti-
tive technologies.
An interesting governmental innovation is a program called Ad-
fund early-stage energy research that profi t-oriented fi rms are unlikely
to support due to technical and fi nancial uncertainties. These projects
in the fi rst years included new battery technologies, CO
2
capture, and
improved turbines. To be realistic, the program is tiny by the standards
of overall R&D, with a budget of $275 million for 2012, versus $5 billion
spent on all energy R&D for the same year. But if the Valley of Death
theory is correct, funds applied at this stage may generate extremely
