Centers of Invention: Leveraging the Mountain West Innovation Complex for Energy System Transformation

Over and over America has looked to the West to work out the future. In this thinly populated terrain, experiments could still be attempted and national agendas advanced more swiftly than in the congested East, so the federal government has sought breakthroughs of every kind in the Mountain region.

In the West, giant dams now generate electricity in new ways. Major science research laboratories lead our nation’s alternative energy program. And for that matter, military test sites, engineering programs, and research and development contracts with universities have contributed to a constant dynamic of radical invention in the Intermountain states. For a century and more, in short, the West has provided an inviting frontier for technological innovation and experimentation, and a powerful symbiosis between federal and Western resources has emerged there.

Mark Muro, Senior Fellow and Policy Director, Metropolitan Policy Program

Sarah Rahman, Senior Policy Analyst, Metropolitan Policy Program

The Brookings Institution

Full Report: http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2010/0901_energy_muro_rahman.aspx