Bottom line is if you don’t have technology that warrants Venture Capital investment, let’s find some lawyers/lobbyists and swing for the fence.

You have some good examples of where gov’t sponsored research is necessary, specifically in areas of science with no practical value today like astronomy (we assume it’ll have future value), or in technologies that are too risky or expensive for smaller companies to do and so the risk must be spread out, sort of like insurance policies.

Note that Lithium-Ion tech is definitely not one of these. Private companies are racing do R&D already, and LION may soon be outdated by newer stuff.

http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/12/29/japan_electric_car_battery_invest/

“The Department of Energy has a history timeline that goes back to 1939. Just because the name changed a few times doesn’t mean that parts of it did not exist before. It came from the Atomic Energy Commission (read bombs) and the majority of the money it spends today is related to atomic energy.”
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Len,

It is true that governmental organizational elements of the DOE (mostly Nuclear Related) already existed and were in 1977 folded into the newly formed DOE. My point is that the initial primary mandate of the DOE as organized (vis-à-vis The Department of Energy Organization Act of 1977) and as funded by many billions of dollars was to reorganize the countries government energy related enterprises to seek a solution to the oil energy crisis America faced back in the 1970’s. The reason some previously nuclear related governmental agencies were rolled up into the DOE was because there was back then a strong belief that the nuclear technology developed by the US Government could be commercialized as a partial alternative to Oil. The idea of the DOE was to implement nuclear technology and other alternative energy sources to meet America’s energy needs. The DOE has since then been hijacked by the Oil Lobbyist and Environmentalist Lobbyist to the point where today the DOE’s original mandate has been lost in history. It is very worthwhile to get deep into the history of the DOE because that history provides a clear glimpse to the prospect of all these new proposed Federal programs taxpayers are looking to fund under the banner of Energy Independence. I want our government to get serious about Energy Independence but I don’t want that effort to wind up a footnote in history similar to the DOE effort.

Source: http://www.energy.gov/about/origins.htm :

[“…the extended energy crisis of the 1970's soon demonstrated the need for unified energy organization and planning. The Department of Energy Organization Act brought the federal government's agencies and programs into a single agency. The Department of Energy, activated on October 1, 1977, assumed the responsibilities of the Federal Energy Administration, the Energy Research and Development Administration, the Federal Power Commission, and parts and programs of several other agencies.]

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We would not be as dependent on oil today if the government had not built the interstate, we would have many more and better faster trains.”

13: “I guess private industry completely died in 2008. I don’t recognize my country anymore.”

Exactly, I need $2000 fund from our Government to R&D converting our family and pet’s waste into electricity in my backyard so I will be electricity indepemdent by 2012.

Give me a break! Sorry cannot help it.