How the Advanced Energy Initiative is Working…

Funny – the total amount budgeted for energy research in 2006 was 23.4 billion dollars. This was a 2 percent decrease (about 450 thousand dollars) from the previous year’s funding. Yet in 2006, the new Advanced Energy Initiative was revealed. So in 2007, the total funding for energy at the DOE was increased a little over 5 million dollars. This strategy effectively allowed the FY2006 savings to offset the FY2007 additional spending.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/energy.html
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2007/energy.html

This may have been an attempt to gain acceptance by the masses by not actually spending anything extra during the first year, or maybe just innocent blundering. Either case, the funding is set to increase by a total of 22 percent but I could not find a specific schedule which this increase will follow.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/stateoftheunion/2006/energy/index.html

I suppose that increase will always depend on the other things…it seems like energy is always the lowest thing on any politicians’ radar. About a 650 million dollar increase is projected for 2009, so it seems to be everything seems to be working well. Plus, the DOE expect about a half a billion dollars in savings for this fiscal year for proactive cost-reducing methods implemented from 2001 to 2007.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/energy.html

This continued increased funding will be devoted to such areas as; vehicle fuel economy, tax incentives for efficient vehicles, clean diesel regulations, renewable ethanol and biodiesel, alternative fuel facilities, and hydrogen vehicles.