ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an example interpretation of the results of an assessment of the federal R&D priorities assigned to: synthetic fuels from coal and oil shale, liquid-metal fast breeder reactors, and improved end-use efficiency technologies. The marginal economic benefit attributable to the improved end-use efficiencies program relative to the base case scenario would be from 279 to 334 billion dollars depending upon the resource case considered. Finally, the resulting ratio of the marginal economic benefit to the projected R&D investment would be about 300 for the improved end-use efficiencies program when it is compared to the base case on a stand-alone basis. The gross benefits calculated for the breeder program here are only: six billion dollars without synfuels or improved end-use efficiency technologies, seven billion dollars with synfuels but no improved end-use technologies, one billion dollars with improved end-use efficiencies but no synfuels and one billion dollars with both improved end-use efficiencies and synfuels.
