Vice President Biden Releases Report on Recovery Act Impact on Innovation

Washington, USA - Vice President Joe Biden unveiled a new report, "The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy through Innovation".

The Report finds that the Recovery Act's $100 billion investment in innovation is not only transforming the economy and creating new jobs, but helping accelerate significant advances in science and technology that cut costs for consumers, save lives and help keep America competitive in the 21st century economy.

According to this new analysis, the U.S. is now on-track to achieve four major innovation breakthroughs thanks to Recovery Act investments. The cost of solar power should be cut in half by 2015 and be put on par with the cost of retail electricity from the grid. The cost of batteries for electric vehicles should be cut by 70 percent between 2009 and 2015, the lifetime cost of an electric vehicle should be put on-par with that of its non-electric counterpart. The U.S. renewable energy generation capacity and U.S. renewable manufacturing capacity should be doubled by 2012. The cost of a personal human genome map should be brought to under $1,000 in five years, allowing researchers to sequence 50 human genomes for the same cost as sequencing just one today.

Overall, the Recovery Act is investing $100 billion in science, technology and innovation projects across the country ranging from building a nationwide smart energy grid and health information technology infrastructure to growing the emerging electric vehicle industry, expanding broadband access and laying the groundwork for a nationwide high speed rail system.

Source: IWR Online, 25 Aug 2010