Don’t be put off by the name. The Advanced Structures and Composites Center at the University of Maine is improving your energy future. It constructed a first-in-the-nation laboratory designed to manufacture and test offshore wind turbines.
It built the Offshore Wind Laboratory, in part, with $5 million in state bond money awarded through a competitive process for research and development projects. With that money, administered by the Maine Technology Institute through the Maine Technology Asset Fund, it was able to leverage an additional $12.5 million.
The laboratory is not only undertaking research critical to the state and nation’s long-term energy needs, but it’s employing people, teaching students and has given a lot of work to subcontractors and suppliers. It has supported more than 150 new full-time jobs, with yearly wages ranging from $30,000 to $70,000.
The laboratory is just one of 35 projects in the state since 2008 that has benefited from research and development bond money. Now, Maine lawmakers have the opportunity to continue the investment in science and technology.
When they return on Tuesday, they should send to Maine voters a $20 million bond proposal for research and development. Legislators will be voting on five separate borrowing bills, including the one for R&D.
The state has been investing more seriously in R&D since a $20 million bond was approved by voters in 1998. Additional investments have continued through the years — Mainers approved a $50 million bond in 2008.
Maine’s push to find new approaches to science and technology showed results over time, but now the state appears to be slipping, according to data from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. Maine’s ranking among states on R&D funds per capita was 49th in 1997, 35th in 2005 and is now 38th. Maine’s total R&D activity is about one-third of the U.S. average and one-sixth of the New England average.
The question about whether to fund R&D comes down to a larger question about Maine’s economy. R&D investments allow Maine to expand into other sectors, such as business, health services and information and biomedical technologies. At the same time, they help traditional industries — such as manufacturing, forestry, fishing, tourism and agriculture — change and become more competitive.
When Gov. Paul LePage said in April that bonds are not the answer to the state’s problems, he capitalized on a general feeling by some that all borrowing is bad. But who doesn’t need a loan to buy a house and makes one lump sum payment instead?
The R&D funds require a match, so the state is looking at a total of at least $40 million in spending on projects that boost economic development. If you’re going to borrow, doing so to create jobs is a pretty good reason. The Legislature should approve the bill for R&D bonding.
So the University can hire more politicians
Balance the budget, we’ll talk. By the way, why can’t they do these things in pilot operations versus huge facilities? Modeling anyone? Throwing money at these things is not an investment but an enormous gamble that there might be a payoff.
Yep, the worst invention was the wheel. Earths gone to hell in a handbasket ever since people started studying on things that might make life more tollerable. Lets outlaw all cars with them infrenal engines.
Let the “private sector” fund research. After all, it will take any profits from public research. Let them use their dollars.
All right! Finally a realistic response to the state bonding out to benefit big corporations! Thank you sir.
and what corporation would that be?
” This test stand is made of 6.5 mililon pounds of concrete”…….. mililion??
Not faulting you but spell check should have caught that error.
I paid cash money for the house I live in now. No loan. No promissory note. No mortgage. No debt.
Well aren’t you just wonderful.
No, just frugal and careful with money.
And compleatly irrelevant to this article.
I love it when you guys get your skivvies in a knot, and are wrong to boot. Anyway, here it is from the second to last paragraph in the article:
“But who doesn’t need a loan to buy a house and makes one lump sum payment instead?”
Are you implying that only people who can pay for a house cash on the barrelhead should be homeowners? That seems kind of elitist.
No. I was answering the writer’s question and implying nothing.
I agree!
“Maine’s push to find new approaches to science and technology showed results over time, but now the state appears to be slipping, according to data from the Maine Department of Economic and Community Development. Maine’s ranking among states on R&D funds per capita was 49th in 1997, 35th in 2005 and is now 38th. Maine’s total R&D activity is about one-third of the U.S. average and one-sixth of the New England average.”
If you don’t invest IN the future, there is NO future.
You reap what you sow.
Maine’s brightest leave the state, for states that actually care about technology and development.
You may now all crawl back under the rocks, from whence you came.
Careful Roo. Accuracy has both no friend’s or cover when it’s out there for all to see. Especially when the accuracy is based on both fact’s and reality. Good for you !
What gets me is there is a direct correlation in what is invested IN R&D and the development of jobs and industry. Maine is doing better than it has in the past, but it’s still WAY behind.
It’s almost as if people don’t want there to be a future – I guess the question is, are people so desperate and determined that their gloom and doom and negativity be validated that they have to actually sabotage their own futures, and the futures of their children and grandchildren ?
And thus the key question is made for the benefit of both the Legislature, the November election’s and the next Governor’s election. Do we, as a State, move forward or do we keep trying to hold onto the past because we’re afraid of facing what’s next ? Whether anyone wants to admit it, time does move on. Next ………..
No bonds. Government needs to get out of the way. Reduce regulations and reduce taxes and watch innovation take off.
The Maine Technology Asset Fund may have provided an economic resource for some companies which warranted the help however they also fund companies which are plainly on the state and federal dole and which have not contributed anything to the future of R&D in Maine. Some of the companies listed on the MTAF site have been sucking off the government for well over 10 years and still haven’t evolved into a self sufficient operation. There needs to be a time limit, state and federal, for access to public funding meant to promote job creation. I challenge BDN to do a little research on the list of companies that enjoy the largess of Maine taxpayers. See how long some of these companies have been sucking at the teat of Maine’s taxpayers who can ill afford to give them a free meal.
Name those companies. Can you ?
I doubt it; companies have to compete for the funding.
Cut, cut, cut, regardless of results; great way to drag the whole state down.
Yes I can name a few of those companies, I used to work for one, who after 12 years is still enjoying the public dole, and I value my future employment. The world of high tech in Maine is small and it doesn’t take much for a vindictive former employer to ruin a livelihood. I am not against funding for social services that help people in need. However long term funding for companies on the dole is as bad as long term funding for individuals who exploit the social services system. At the very least if you take long term abusers of this largess off the system it free’s up funds for other companies which might have a chance at making a go of it. Again, I challenge BDN to look into how long the companies supported by the MTFA have been enjoying public support while not evolving into self supporting entities.
Watchdog has a point, nasty as it is, that at some point MTFA needs to say ‘Folk’s, it’s this year or we are outta’ here’. It’s a proven fact, both by statistic and historical record’s (Got to love those folk’s in Charlie Summers Corporation’s Office and the Revenue Service’s Business section’s) that the 1st 3 year’s are the most critical. They are also the one’s that these same Company’s need the initial Bond investment in to get them up and running and start turning a profit for the Bond investment to be re-paid. At some point the Company is gonna have to stand on it’s own. Anything else is just coddling it. And that does no one any good.
Waste of money. Let General Electric, which make millions actually manufacturing the silly windmills, spend their own money testing designs.
I have to wonder if all of the people out there who believe Maine needs to do away with bonding, especially for R&D, STEM, and other tech arenas, share the same sentiment about saving for their retirements? By bonding, Maine is doing what hundreds of thousands of the rest of us are doing; looking for investments that might yield tangible returns so that our future comfort and prosperity is ensured. If you don’t believe in bonding, and that Maine can only pay cash it has in hand for what it wants, then surely you must be only saving your paychecks in low yield savings and checking accounts for your own futures. That’s a solid plan for the future if I’ve ever heard one! Maine always leverages it’s bonds. It’s the law. 1 million from Maine = 2 million or more invested in our future. Now if only I could get those kinds of yields from my own 401K…
Bernie Madoff would — with the same kind of promises.
I am an ardent supporter of alternative energies NREL created a wind-blade testing facility in Boston. UMaine now has a test-base on-campus… but when will testing begin here? How do you even get a 70m blade to Orono??? I wish UMaine luck on this one and hope the investment pays-off.
It won’t.
Pork barrel