I share your philosophy, so my “narrative” isn’t personal, it’s global and impartial. I look at a problem and start with a clean sheet – i.e. no bias toward any particular solution.

“Those are major changes.” Well I’m not sure about that. This looks more like the incremental development that business is comfortable with.

“To launch a new industry you definitely do not need to first identify exactly what it is.” You do if you want to get it right and quick. Kennedy set the Apollo deadline. First question for the scientists – “How do we do this?” The overwhelming majority of the smart people on the Program believed you would simply land on the moon and return in one spaceship.

One maverick, John Houbolt said no, LOR is the only way and he did the calc’s to prove it. That wasn’t good enough for the reactionary sceptics. Some guys resorted to ridicule and personal insults. (sound familiar?) It took Houbolt and his associates two years to change minds. Google for the whole story, if you’re not familiar with it – fascinating.

“Other countries are supporting wave and tidal.” I know, I live there. Those “world-leading” industries are divorced from off-shore wind. A handful of unprofitable companies struggle to survive without decent R&D support, competing against each other. It’s daft. All the work – none of the reward.

Progress is painfully slow, 10 or 12 years, and you may be ‘heading up the wrong creek without a paddle’. This is no way to galvanize industrial regeneration. The big energy guys look on with a smug grin, while these poor firms go bust. Or, if they do succeed, they’ll buy them up and grab the fruits of years of R&D labour dirt cheap.

“We’re not even doing the heavy lifting with offshore wind. Europe is doing that.” Yes, and the US won’t need ANY dedicated heavy-lift kit, if they don’t repeat the same mistakes that Europe made and is still making.

Offshore turbines have gone from small units to the now-under-development 10MW monsters that are so large they have helicopter pads on top of their nacelles. Turbines without gear boxes have been developed in order to cut turbine weight and reduce maintenance. Floating towers for deep water wind farms are being deployed.

Those are major changes.

To launch a new industry you definitely do not need to first identify exactly what it is. No one knew that we’d get cell phones which are actually tiny computers that we could carry around in our pocket when the government began to support mini-computers. Out of those refrigerator-sized computers sprang the “Apples” and then all the other very smart, very small devices we use.

Yes, marine renewables do include wave and tidal as well as wind. At the moment other countries are supporting wave and tidal more than the US government is. That’s OK. We don’t have to invent everything. (We’re not even doing the heavy lifting with offshore wind. Europe is doing that.)

Personally I think it’s great that other countries are taking the lead in some technologies. Smart people are not unique to the US. We’re all on this ball of water and dirt together, I don’t care who figures out how to snatch us from the fossil fuel dragon. I just want us saved.

I don’t think this is about how long it takes to establish an industry, it’s more about selecting the best technology to give new industry a head start on the competition.

The first off-shore wind farm was built 20 years ago, using on-shore design that had hardly changed in the previous 20 years. That’s the industry failing to innovate, not new industry taking decades to get established. This often happens if market intervention is through production subsidy. There is little incentive to spend on R&D and no urgency to innovate.

Spending this $180m over 6 years on “accelerating the deployment of breakthrough wind power technologies” is the wrong objective on the wrong timescale. Public investment has to address market failure by funding the disruptive R&D that private business avoids, so you don’t ask the incumbents for their ideas. To “launch a new industry” you have to first identify exactly what it is. Marine renewables include wave and tidal stream, not just wind. It makes no sense to develop any one in isolation, when they could share the same structure and infrastructure. Why do they use turbines not designed for (floating) off-shore?

Some lateral thinking on these lines could help to achieve the “large cost reductions over existing wind technologies.” we’re looking for, instead of playing ‘catch-up’ on the pioneers who are (they think) ten years ahead.

The onshore wind industry has been receiving help for 40 years or so and is just now getting close to standing on its own.