the free market taking care of our technological competitiveness in the future

[olduser]

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-me...isnt-investin/

[olduser]

Simply throwing more money at R&D doesn't necessarily make results come faster lol. And comparing ratios spent on R&D between energy, tech, and pharmaceutical industries is an apples vs. oranges argument; the contrast is meaningless. 0.25% is probably optimal given the nature of the energy business and the likely ROI.

Econometrics also, unfortunately, cannot define scientific progress in a meaningful and complete way.

[FDG]

Well, I don't think you can expect coal and petrol industries to invest in R&D connected to green tech & energies. Start-ups & govt / universities seem to be a better place where such a "revolution" might happen, given that converting a coal and/or petrol industry to renewable-energy industry is probably more expensive than just closing it down and re-starting from scratch. We have a very innovative start-up called KiteGen, they didn't need any research, just an idea from one person. OTOH topics like nuclear fusion would likely require lots of money to be poured into R&D but I believe governments are already into that...