The price-performance charts document averaged development results from subsequent technological S-curves, documented by Genrich Altschuller, inventor of TRIZ (short article, [Gadd2011]). At the begin high investment does not result in direct effect. The slope in the beginning is slowly rising because of poor technological understanding, lacking research results and high recalcitrance. More funding might start alternative S-curves. But these new developing technologies are still in their infancy and give no immediate results.
Recalcitrance in renewable energy harvesting technology is obviously high and long lasting. It is easy to harvest a little bit, but increasing efficiency and quantity was and is complex. Therefore the curves you documented are dominantly linear.
Recalcitrance in genome sequencing was different. Different technological options to do the sequencing were at hand when human genome project boosted funding. Furthermore S-curves followed each other in shorter intervals. The result is your expected funding effect:
Historic cost of sequencing a human genome, license Ben Moore CC BY-SA 3.0
This is similar to question about 10time quicker mind and economic growth. I think there are some natural processes which are hard to be “cheated”.
One woman could give birth in 9 month but two women cannot do it in 4.5 month. Twice more money to education process could give more likely 2*N graduates after X years than N graduates after X/2 years.
Some parts of science acceleration have to wait years for new scientists. And 2 time more scientists doesnt mean 2 time more discoveries. Etc.
But also 1.5x more discoveries could bring 10x bigger profit!
We could not suppose only linear dependencies in such a complex problems.
The Carter-Reagan transition marked a major shift in energy policy. Politics matters, and less than catastrophic technology failures can make people back way away from a particular technology solution.
I was moaning to someone the other day that we have had three well-known nuclear power disasters. If the record was clean, then environmental activists would be unconcerned, we would not need as much regulation, construction lead-times would fall dramatically, nuclear would become cheaper than coal and the global warming issue would vanish completely once electric cars become practical.
The performance curves database site only has data submitted from ’09 to ’10. None of the data sets are up to date. There’s also not much context to the data, so it can be misinterpreted easily.
What is going on with those renewable funding and performance curves?
The price-performance charts document averaged development results from subsequent technological S-curves, documented by Genrich Altschuller, inventor of TRIZ (short article, [Gadd2011]). At the begin high investment does not result in direct effect. The slope in the beginning is slowly rising because of poor technological understanding, lacking research results and high recalcitrance. More funding might start alternative S-curves. But these new developing technologies are still in their infancy and give no immediate results.
Recalcitrance in renewable energy harvesting technology is obviously high and long lasting. It is easy to harvest a little bit, but increasing efficiency and quantity was and is complex. Therefore the curves you documented are dominantly linear.
Recalcitrance in genome sequencing was different. Different technological options to do the sequencing were at hand when human genome project boosted funding. Furthermore S-curves followed each other in shorter intervals. The result is your expected funding effect:
Historic cost of sequencing a human genome, license Ben Moore CC BY-SA 3.0
This is similar to question about 10time quicker mind and economic growth. I think there are some natural processes which are hard to be “cheated”.
One woman could give birth in 9 month but two women cannot do it in 4.5 month. Twice more money to education process could give more likely 2*N graduates after X years than N graduates after X/2 years.
Some parts of science acceleration have to wait years for new scientists. And 2 time more scientists doesnt mean 2 time more discoveries. Etc.
But also 1.5x more discoveries could bring 10x bigger profit!
We could not suppose only linear dependencies in such a complex problems.
The Carter-Reagan transition marked a major shift in energy policy. Politics matters, and less than catastrophic technology failures can make people back way away from a particular technology solution.
I was moaning to someone the other day that we have had three well-known nuclear power disasters. If the record was clean, then environmental activists would be unconcerned, we would not need as much regulation, construction lead-times would fall dramatically, nuclear would become cheaper than coal and the global warming issue would vanish completely once electric cars become practical.
The performance curves database site only has data submitted from ’09 to ’10. None of the data sets are up to date. There’s also not much context to the data, so it can be misinterpreted easily.
What’s the relevance of this, for comparing them to energy funding earlier this century?
I agree this is a problem. I think they usually have a citation that can be followed.