Democrats and Republicans agree on little when it comes to government policy, including how Washington should influence the ways that Americans produce and use energy.
But one exception is a relatively small program at the U.S. Department of Energy that invests in early-stage technologies with the potential to provide new forms of low- or no-carbon energy efficiently, economically and satisfactorily.
Established with bipartisan support in Congress in 2007 and first funded two years later, the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy has awarded $1.3 billion to more than 475 projects formed by teams from academia, private industry and national laboratories with ideas for technologies in such fields as biofuels, energy storage, superconducting wires, and solar and wind systems.
