The Critical First Customer

The US government is the nation's largest consumer of energy -- federal agencies spent more than $7.4 billion for energy in 2000 alone. By providing the crucial first customer for new energy technologies, we can greatly compress the time it takes to make them affordable in the consumer market.

Kennedy's Apollo space project had a similar effect on the cost of the computer. NASA gave engineers at MIT the task of designing the computers for Apollo's guidance system. To increase computing power and reduce weight, the engineers decided to use "integrated circuits", which became vital to the growth of the computer industry. At the beginning of the Apollo program, the cost of a single integrated circuit was about $1000. The MIT engineers needed 5,000 of these circuits to construct the flight computers, accounting for more than one third of the world's total demand. By 1963, integrated circuits cost $25, a price drop of 97.5%. This allowed other industries to experiment with the new technology, resulting in the phenomenal growth of the computer industry.

The New Apollo Energy Project can accomplish the same thing for renewable energy technology. By providing an immediate demand for innovation in clean energy production and improved efficiency, the federal government can encourage production, reduce prices, and greatly accelerate the wide-spread adoption of new technology.