There are some gems buried in the stimulus package.  One appears to be $400 million in funding for a new mini agency within DOE called the Advanced Research Project Agency - Energy.  Eli Kintisch, writing at Science Insider, a science policy blog, has talked about the importance of focusing on energy research - the kind that is risky but has the potential for huge payoffs down the line.  Steven Chu, now the Secretary of Energy, was one of the authors of The Gathering Storm report, commissioned by the Senate and published by the National Academy of Sciences in 2007, which called for the creation of the agency.

Kintisch now writes that the new agency, ARPA-E, was funded in the compromise House and Senate stimulus bill.  It's mission: to sponsor “creative, out-of-the-box, transformational” energy research.  ARPA-E is charged with developing technologies that:

• Reduce dependency on foreign oil;
• Improve the energy efficiency of all economic sectors;
• Reduce greenhouse gas emissions; and
• Maintain U.S. leadership in the development and deployment of energy technologies.

Modeled after DARPA, the Pentagon's risk-taking, blue-sky and highly classified research arm, the agency was created within the DOE by Congress last year, but there was no leader appointed nor funding provided.  That appears to have changed. Watch for Chu to act on the opportunity quickly.  Check here for additional information.