Arun Majumdar

The Promise of ARPA-E

February / March 2010 By: Tom Michael Volume 8 Number 1

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Don't count Arun Majumdar, the new director of the Department of Energy's Advance Research Projects Agency, known as ARPA-E, among those wringing his hands and worrying excessively about the future of American science. The celebrated former Berkeley environmental energy professor, who was recruited by Energy Secretary Steven Chu to run the two-year old ARPA-E office last year, is actually quite optimistic. In fact, his enthusiasm for America's energy potential is downright infectious.

"We have the best research and development infrastructure in the world, no question about it," Majumdar said in a lengthy interview with Innovation Magazine. "We have a fantastic ecosystem for entrepreneurship and business. And we have, I believe, the most energized young generation about energy and the environment."

"They are ready to step up and engage," Majumdar said. "And we want to unleash them to innovate." But despite his sunny outlook, Majumdar is not blind to the storm clouds that have accumulated over U.S. science and technology capabilities.

ARPA-E was created by Congress following Rising Above the Gathering Storm. The 2005 document—€”often called the "Augustine Report" in honor of its lead author Norman Augustine, retired president and chairman of the Lockheed Martin Corporation—€”concluded: "America faces a serious and intensifying challenge with regard to its future competitiveness and standard of living."
Majumdar said as much in a letter to the American scientific community in December. He wrote that the nation is "lagging behind" global efforts to produce more clean and efficient energy. "We as a nation need to change course with fierce urgency," Majumdar said.

That's where he comes in.

Although Congress established ARPA-E two years ago, the Bush Administration never set up the office and Congress didn't fund it until last year, when the office finally got a $400 million infusion of cash through the federal stimulus program.

"I think that's a great starting point," Majumdar said. But Majumdar is also quick to say that ARPA-E can't innovate America's way to energy independence all by itself.

"ARPA-E can play a role, but we need more than ARPA-E," he said. "We need the smaller stakeholders, the venture capitalists, the large and small industry, small business, academics, all working together," he said. "What ARPA-E can do is take a shot at those home runs and reduce the risks for venture community or for the large industry.

"Maybe the ideas are great, but it's not business-ready because there are technological risks," he continued. "If ARPA-E can play a role in reducing those risks and make it business ready so business can thrive on it, that's what we are all about."

In announcing the funding, Energy Secretary Chu, a former colleague of Majumdar's at Berkeley, said ARPA-E was "a crucial part of the new effort by the U.S. to spur the next industrial revolution in clean energy technologies, creating thousands of new jobs and helping cut carbon pollution."

Much like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency within the Department of Defense, after which the DOE office is patterned, ARPA-E has been congressionally directed to take big gambles when it comes to producing cutting-edge new science.

"History tells us the ones that have really been game-changers are the ones where someone has really risked and been a pioneer," Majumdar said. "They learned from mistakes and then re-innovate. We want to find the next Wright brothers. ARPA-E is willing to consider ideas from a wide range of sources.
"Our goal is to get the best ideas no matter where they come from, What DOE can do and ARPA-E can do is catalyze and bring these forces together and unleash them, combine that with private investment and expand it. That's the way to go."

Majumdar said an immediate priority for ARPA-E is developing more innovative materials and processes for carbon capture technology. Currently, it costs about $70 to $100 to capture a ton of carbon dioxide from post-combustion coal plants.

"Our goal is to reduce that cost of carbon capture by a substantial amount," he said. "There is a steady road map to do it, and that is great, but ARPA-E's goal is to find alternate high risk approaches, which can do better than that, that can accelerate the pace."

ARPA-E has also launched a program Majumdar affectionately calls BEEST, which is an acronym for Battery for Electrical Energy Storage for Transportation. He said DOE's primary investment in battery technology has been for lithium ion batteries.

"But even if you take them to the limit, that's not quite enough to drive a hundred miles in a car," Majumdar. "That's just not good enough. There are other batteries out there, which are slightly higher risk, metal air batteries that have a much higher—€”5 to 10 times higher—€”energy density, and potentially a lower cost that we are not investing in." Meanwhile, the Japanese government is investing $60 million a year in advanced battery research and the private sector is investing as well.

Majumdar and ARPA-E also are pursuing a new program to develop "electro-fuels," a word recently coined at DOE. Basically, the office is seeking new ways to make liquid transportation fuels—€”without petroleum or biomass—€”using microorganisms to harness chemical or electrical energy to convert carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. Theoretically, the approach could produce fuel 10 times more efficiently than traditional mechanisms.

"There are organisms down in the deep depths of the ocean and they don't have oxygen, they don't have photosynthesis, yet they are extremely efficient," Majumdar said.

"Here the goal is to take the pathway, that mechanism that the organisms have, and tweak it to form gasoline. If this thing works it's just amazing. It could change the landscape. We are obviously going for the home run and we may miss a few, but if we get one or two or three out of these, we'll be in great shape."
And how long might that take? When will taxpayers see the fruits of their investment in ARAP-E?

"To actually see the impact of the home run, it could take a long time—€”10-plus years," Majumdar said. By comparison, he said it took the Arpanet at least a decade to evolve into the ubiquitous and ultimately life-changing internet. In the meantime, ARPA-E has definite ideas about how to quantify progress in three to five year increments.

"If you have a follow-on investment by a venture capital firm or if the firm suddenly realizes this is an interesting space to be and they decide to create other companies within the space, that's a good sign," Majumdar said. "That means you're creating an ecosystem. If you increase the value of an enterprise company from $3 million to $20 million, that's a big deal. How many patents are created or do you have a best in class performance? Those are the kinds of things—€”metametrics—€”that we're putting together."

Majumdar said he's been given wide latitude to manage his office in a way that he can achieve his goals aggressively. For starters, he reports directly to Chu. And he's trying to recruit talent that has experience not only in science, but also business or technology.

"I'm trying to put an all-star team together here," he said. "These are people who have one foot in science and engineering and the other foot in technology and business. These are not easy people to find."

And he's not seeking people who want to hang their hats at DOE for the rest of their careers.

"Program directors will be here a maximum of four years," he said. "They are all temporary. No one is permanent our here. We need some fresh new ideas. We don't need people to get entrenched in a position and forget about what research is all about."

Majumdar's urgency is refreshing in a federal bureaucracy that often seems to move at a snail's pace. He said America's way of life depends on it. He described a "triple whammy" of challenges facing the U.S.—€”technological competitiveness from abroad, dwindling shortages of energy supplies and global warming threats.

"We need five times more innovation to address those problems than what we have seen in the past hundred years," he said. "The country that can reduce its consumption and still grow its economy with clean energy will be the leader of the 21st century. The president has said he wants us to lead and that's what we're trying to do."

Tom Michael is Innovation's Washington bureau chief.