Institutionalising energy

Anyone old enough to have lived through the energy crises of the 1970s may have a sense of déjá vu when it comes to a new report from the Department of Trade and Industry in the UK. The DTI has just posted the prospectus for the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) on its web site.

 

We wanted to quote a bit from it on how it will bring together researchers and industry, but the PDF file is locked up in a way that doesn't allow this. Hold on, there is a Word file there too. That does allow copying.

 

The prospectus tell us that "the Institute will connect the best scientists and engineers working in academic and industrial organisations both within the UK and overseas".

 

The new operation sits squarely in Science|Business territory. It will run projects that "will accelerate the movement of industrially applicable innovative energy technologies through the full innovation chain to enable eventual commercial deployment to begin broadly within 10 years. The work of the Institute therefore primarily occupies the middle ground between the longer-term research funded by the UK's Research Councils and the deployment of proven technologies, although by exception it may undertake small scale demonstration projects."

 

It will be interesting to see how this organisational model works out. If they want to have an impact, the ETI will have to be faster on their feet than is usually the case in joint ventures like this.