US: Obama's billions for energy fuel research dreams

In the basement lab of Nitash Balsara at the University of California, Berkeley, are the ingredients of a lighter, more potent battery to power the cars of the future. To build it, he needs President Barack Obama's stimulus package to pass, writes Oliver Staley for Bloomberg.

Balsara, a chemical engineer, has assembled a team of 15 scientists that applied for $25 million over five years from the US Department of Energy to improve batteries by modifying their materials. Money for energy projects is part of an $819 billion stimulus, passed by the US House of Representatives, that Obama says is critical to saving the economy.

Researchers at US universities, led by Berkeley, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, are targeting the $2 billion in energy research funds contained in the House recovery bill. The research dollars will produce jobs, reduce US dependence on foreign oil and stem the production of greenhouse gases, according to the Association of American Universities, a group of 62 schools that conduct research.
Full report on the Bloomberg site