Is the budget for the center from the federal govt.? If so, I would prefer to see it comnpletely axed. The private sector can do a much better job with, and almost everything else. There's also the fact that it appears to be unconstitutional.

Also, is that a VW bus I see in the front parking lot in the pic (hard to tell), is it pre-catalytic converters? ;-)

I think if they really need some money they could tell GW Bush that they know were oil is (in a foreign country) and we could kill a bunch of people we don't know and take it, they could have BILLIONS over night.
===author's response follows ===
For readers seriously interested in this topic, have a look at the innovation list and ongoing projects from NREL. One way or another the successful ones with commercial promise do get turned over to the private sector when the time is right. It's the identical business model that is used in Japan...and Korea (except the data are for real) and elsewhere, where government lubricates the ideation processes. This is important to overcome short term return pressures on the private sector. Example: if oil price dropped 20% a private initiative on renewables would be tabled while the government can hold on for the ineveitable return upward. It is also worth considering that US national firms are competing with oversease based multinationals that are highly government supported.

With all due respect Speedmaster-- #########..perhaps before knocking something and saying you want it axed (because it's federally funded) why not actually do some research and see what it is you are cutting down? ######! "..... You say the private sector can do a better job than the NREL? "... do you even know what the NREL has done and *given* to the public sector? "..." Why not list out an inventory of the thousands of innovations the NREL has helped concieve? Do you really think any pencil necked bottom liners would spend 10+ years perfecting a way to suck CO2 out of smokestacks because they knew they would eventually find a system to remove the CO2? NREL did (and then sold it to a private company). Do you think that the almighty private sector has done jack about the fact that there's no solar grade silicon for making solar panels now? The private sector has known about it for over 7 years and done SFA-- the NREL? oh they only invented a way to make silicon that uses 30% of the electricicty and no chlorine (way cheaper and more efficient) and that is then ---like everything they do-- sold to the private sector. Without the NREL your holy and righteous private sector would have to be spending through the nose to get these same innovations.

The NREL was a godsend and the only thing I can imagine now is that if morons are happier not knowing things but sticking to their opinions... well then, you deserve the ###-sandwhich you are about to be served. Bon Appetite, enjoy your $3 Gallons and $1000/month heating bills, oh and choking the rest of us out!
=================================
I am sure that everyone else out there who is saddened by this news will know and can attest to the fact that the NREL (along with Sandia-- which Mr. Speedmaster would probably like axed as well, even though they just helped create that 3000 acre stirling engine solar park) this was probably the best organization the United States had ever created. This is a very sad piece of news.

john, sorry for being so persnickitey, and thanks like always for the info...

johns right (in his comment up there) everybody from taiwan to russia has a government sposnored renewables research division... so if an american did want to be competitive they could um, capitalize, from these VW driving hippie researchers.... oh and if you do want, like John says, t oactually see what they are up to, http://www.nrel.gov/research.html is a good start, oh and just three of my favorites; here's a trove and a half, some extra awesome tools, freebiews of course oh and like, only 10+ years of biodiesel research.....

you'd be safer dissing my mom than dissing the NREL

Maybe this is a really naive thing to say, but if the NREL are so good, surely it's former staff would be able to get some funding and start up a business themselves. They could continue to innovate and sell the things they develop.

I'm assuming lots of public money got used up by these guys in the past. Presumably the authorities have figured the time has come when alternative energy innovation is lucrative enough in its own right.
===== authors' response follows ======
Good point, and a hopefull one for certain. Research and developement projects are complex and drawn out. The time needed for basic research to reach a point of practical promise is commonly in the 7 to 10 year range. So there's a risk that projects only a few years into the work will die as senior people move on. Private sector will not likely nourish something with too many uncertainties and we can expect to see such evaporate. Secondly, top flight reasearchers tend to be science and tech focused and would need to pair up with the right business talent as well as find funding. That takes lots of time and luck. People have to earn a living in the meantime. [The lab has processes for moving pre-commercial stuff over to businesses and dispersing the researchers adds uncertainty and delays I suspect.]. On reading the full news article I developed a conern that the "diversion" of funding from MREL budget to other organizations/persons/agencies could be akin to the Alaskan "bridge to nowhere" funding process. The public gets no insights or input into the merits of those reallocations as they are done without hearing. I hope I am wrong in this expectation.

While the amount of dollars is most likely correct ($20-25 million), the number of jobs lost will be substantially less than 100.

Regardless, it's indeed a very sad trend on two fronts. One, that congressmen keep earmarking more and more money (not just in energy research, but across the board) for their own selfish constituents. There is a reason that there are managerial positions at NREL who help determine where the money should go in a logical and technical-based manner. For example, $11 million is being diverted from NREL's hugely successful biomass program and will be given to a junior college in Mississippi. Am I the only one who thinks that a leading research laboratory could do a better and more efficient job with the money?

And secondly, it's just beyond disturbing that this is happening at a time when the energy field is in need of as much help as it can get. We've got huge problems with our overconsumption of oil and natural gas, consumers are seeing higher prices, and yet we're going to divert research towards suboptimal earmarked locations?

Woe is us.

like you said, it would take luck and more for researchers to allofthesudden become entrepreneurs (would be beasier to hope that evil polluters become saints overnight). the NREL could have had a better business model, and could have demanded some ownership in companid who capitalize on their previous tech advancements. But that is neither here nor there now-- as it seems too late to restructure thei rfinances, especially with +50% or the population not knowing what they do and assuming that its one more wasteful goavernment organization. so very sad and untrue

While the idea that national labs should be dismantled and not funded is a legitimate one, albeit one I strongly disagree with (free-market capitalism is ill equipped to adequately handle research like this), it should be noted that the reduction of funding for NREL in this case is NOT an example of this. This is an example of money being diverted from the national lab to specific groups that certain Congressmen have chosen. You, as a taxpayer, are not seeing less taxes because of this. There is not less beaurocracy because of this. What you ARE seeing, however, is less efficiency and worse handling of your taxpayer dollars.

So please, at least read the articles before you post. There are no absolute cuts here, just pork for the congressmen and less for a cutting-edge national renewable energy lab.

Alaska Senator Stevens robs the country of $223 million for a bridge to nowhere and NREL gets cut by $11 million. Idiots!