ABSTRACT
A set of government-sponsored, energy-technology R&D programs is assumed for each of the three technology areas. The three sets of new energy technologies are evaluated by developing eight scenarios, each of which assumes the successful development of one of the possible combinations of the three sets of technologies. Although many variations in the nominal parameter values assumed in this study would perhaps be of interest, time and resource constraints limited the investigation to only a few parameters that seemed a priori to be the most relevant. The parameters varied here are the domestic availability of low-cost oil and gas and the price of imported oil. Comparisons of the levels of the various resource consumptions help explain the differences in the economic benefits attributable to the various R&D programs and combinations of these programs. The rate of increase of liquid fuels consumption is so low primarily due to the relative cost of liquid fuels.
