Nice speech. I would agree that the Marshall Plan is a far more suitable analogy than either the Manhatten or Apollo projects for the reasons stated.

But when you get right down to it, it sounds like a sales pitch for creating some mega government agency that would tax energy users and then spread that money around to various R & D entities (such as MIT no doubt). Some appointed board would decide who is worthy of what funding, and I strongly suspect that Professor Lester sees himself sitting on such a board.

I have had direct experience with government-funded R & D in the environmental field, and, to a lesser extent, the energy field. Based on my direct observations, many of these efforts degenerate into self-serving boondoggles, and millions of dollars are pissed away on repetitive and pointless projects as if they were nickles. This is endemic to practically all major government undertakings. Just look at how effectively the Department of Homeland Security spends money.

I don't know what the answer is, but if we go this route, I fear the real outcome will be a lot of money spent by the well-connected, a lot of pretty but largely useless demo projects for which academics can produce an endless flow of papers to present at conferences, but little real progress in terms of putting commercial-scale stuff in place.

Then of course we have the question: Is the limiting factor in getting ourselves out of the hole we're digging a lack of technical innovation or a lack of will combined with a lack of capital investment in the right things in the right places at the right time?