[shantanubala]

I feel like I'm reading the same article, but drawing very different conclusions from other commenters. I might be missing something - of eleven projects, three were reasonably successful implementations of an improvement to existing infrastructure that can slow climate change. Not terrible for new technology.

Although there is likely a better allocation of $1.1B in isolation, that is not the world in which this investment was made - $1.1B amounts to <5% of the annual DOE budget. It also does not include comparisons to other investments e.g. over $1B goes towards electric vehicle tax rebates every year [1]. Build Back Better proposed $555B of federal spending for renewable energy.

Are we going to discuss budgets in absolute dollar amounts, or discuss them as portfolios?

I will simultaneously applaud efforts to develop electric vehicles while applauding efforts to increase the MPG rating of an ICE vehicle. The same way, I'll applaud any serious effort to reduce our emissions at coal power plants that do indeed help load balance our somewhat fragile power grid - a fragility we need to address while also ensuring our existing infrastructure serves us well.

[1] https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/IF11017.pdf

[iamthemonster]

It's not completely unheard-of for $1bn to be spent on oil and gas projects that never actually get sanctioned.