The Government Accountability Office (GAO) recently found that the EPA "could benefit from more information on treatment technologies."
http://www.gao.gov/assets/650/647992.pdf Technology assessment is not a factor in effluent guidelines. Previously, the GAO found that DOE, unlike NASA and other technical agencies, has no database of technology assessment. The result is that new ideas regarding air and water pollution technology have no way to be heard and evaluated. The "proven" technology may be laughably primitive (e.g. the API separator (1933) used at refineries), but there is no way to suggest improvements. There is no way to get a new idea validated for further development
ARPA-E (which is supposed to be for disruptive innovation in the power industry) has a 20% cost-sharing requirement. Startups don't have the money for cost-sharing, so the grants become more corporate welfare and academic subsidies for old thinking.
As for private funding, conventional econometrics punish innovation. The treatment of expenditures for technology development "disadvantages every capital-intensive platform investment and supports anything that prolongs the life of aging assets." See p. 14 at
http://www.khoslaventures.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/InnovatorsEcosystem_12_19_111.pdf Purported technology experts defend the old stuff because that is what they know. Like the drunk looking for his keys under a streetlight because there the light is better, the experts and government agencies tasked with developing new ideas are effectively blinded by the limitation of their search.
There are no prizes for new ideas. There is no way to discuss and evaluate new ideas. Inventors are shunned like lepers and called trolls.
They say even a dog knows the difference between being tripped over and being kicked, and with regard to technology development policy in America, the evidence inclines toward kicked.
