The Obama response to the economic resession is to try and make some big reforms (which really bothers people on the far right, who think the concept of “not wasting a crisis” is dirty politics), and to implement the New Deal style of economic crisis management. Most economists seem to be all for some kind of government intervention, but the general theme appears to be that the best way for government to spend on infrastructure is to pay for things that will actually increase economic activity, and not just put people to work. That’s too bad, because I think we’re about 10-20 years away from a couple of major infrastructure projects that could massively transform the modern economy.
First project – large scale, efficient electricity storage. Wired talks about the future of the grid with seven separate reforms to meet our current energy goals. In the context of major infrastructure, efficient long-distance transmission and battery storage are the two best candidates for direct government funded action. The barriers to transmission are mostly political, so a federal push right now is well timed. Storage, on the other hand, just hasn’t passed the point in research where a full on federal program is likely to create an economically viable outcome in the long term.
There are a lot of potential avenues to explore to store energy – the Wired article talks about compressed air, flywheels, and pumped water. I’ve heard a lot about high-capacity capacitors, for instance. Obviously in the past 10 years or so batteries have become far more efficient, but they’re still not up to the task of storing energy from irregular green generators like solar and wind. There’s certainly a lot of research to be done, but that’s a far cry from stimulating the economy by funding a transformation in the infrastructure with a proven solution. Once there’s an accepted approach to large-scale energy storage a massive federal program might work; until then, money needs to go into smaller scale pilot projects to test a variety of directions.
Second project – driverless vehicles. We’re a lot closer than we were ten years ago. Most of the elements are already in place – GPS devices tied to road maps, automatic braking systems, adaptive cruise control and automatic parking, and of course the dramatic improvement of contestants in the DARPA Grand Challenge all show that the various elements required for self-piloted vehicles are available; what remains is to stitch them together.
The problem is pretty similar to the energy storage problem – there haven’t been any pilot programs or tests of automated vehicle systems in an urban environment apart from DARPA, probably because it’s extremely dangerous. That means that there’s no general consensus on a national standard for automating vehicle traffic. Should roads have embedded navigation indicators, like breadcrumbs for cars? How should cars be alerted about construction projects? To what degree should vehicles communicate with each other, or to what degree should they be controlled by a centralized system? Again, all of these questions are good ones for government to be spending money on answering. If the research were about fifteen years further along this would be a golden opportunity.
I focused on energy storage and automated vehicles because I see those as the two upcoming changes to our infrastructure that will A) require or benefit from government intervention, and B) create a great deal of economic opportunity in the long term. Not being required to drive your car means you can start work during your commute (or read a book and extend your leisure time, if you’re not a died-in-the-wool workaholic). Long term storage of electricity opens the way for a much bigger investment in renewable energy, from massive thermal-solar plants down to widespread photovoltaic units on individual homes, replacing aging coal infrastructure. I think that Obama’s desire to take advantage of the crisis is dead on; it’s just unfortunate that the two upcoming changes that massive infusions of federal cash would help the most are too far out to invest in.