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The Valley of Death for New Energy Technologies

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  • Peter R Hartley

    (Rice University and University of Western Australia)

  • Kenneth B Medlock III

    (Rice University)

Abstract

More than 90% of the world's primary energy currently is supplied by fossil fuels, while more than 8% comes from nuclear power and hydroelectricity. Thus, despite the recent publicity for energy sources such as wind, solar, geothermal or biofuels, they provide only a tiny fraction of the world's energy, and even then mainly as a result of subsidies. On the positive side, large-scale energy production from non-hydroelectric renewable sources has at least become technologically feasible. One of the commonly cited reasons why new energy technologies have had difficulty gaining commercial viability is the so-called “valley of death". According to Markham et al. (2010), the phrase “valley of death" was first used in 1995 to refer to the challenges of transferring agricultural technologies to Third-World countries. It was later applied to describe a paucity of funding for the commercialization of new technologies relative to the funds available for more basic R&D.

Suggested Citation

  • Peter R Hartley & Kenneth B Medlock III, 2014. "The Valley of Death for New Energy Technologies," Economics Discussion / Working Papers 14-14, The University of Western Australia, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uwa:wpaper:14-14
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    Cited by:

    1. Grecu, Eugenia & Aceleanu, Mirela Ionela & Albulescu, Claudiu Tiberiu, 2018. "The economic, social and environmental impact of shale gas exploitation in Romania: A cost-benefit analysis," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 691-700.
    2. Peter R. Hartley, 2018. "The Cost of Displacing Fossil Fuels: Some Evidence from Texas," The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 0(Number 2).
    3. Alessandro Muscio & Felice Simonelli & Hien Vu, 2023. "Bridging the valley of death in the EU renewable energy sector: Toward a new energy policy," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(7), pages 4620-4635, November.
    4. Zoya Pourmirza & Seyed Hamid Reza Hosseini & Sara Walker & Damian Giaouris & Philip Taylor, 2022. "The Landscape and Roadmap of the Research and Innovation Infrastructures in Energy: A Review of the Case Study of the UK," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(12), pages 1-24, June.
    5. Joelle Noailly & Roger Smeets, 2019. "Do Financing Constraints Matter for the Direction of Technical Change in Energy R&D?," CIES Research Paper series 58-2018, Centre for International Environmental Studies, The Graduate Institute.

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