Challenging the attitude of austerity on Capitol Hill, a Harvard University study released today urges Congress to roughly double spending on energy research, development and demonstration from $5 billion per year to $10 billion annually.

Spending money today on cutting-edge technologies such as energy storage, bioenergy and solar photovoltaics could save hundreds of billions of dollars down the road for taxpayers and businesses -- especially if the United States decides to pursue policies that set a price or limit on the carbon emissions that are linked to climate change, the researchers from Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs say.

"Despite current deficits, the United States cannot afford to forego the long-term investments that will improve its competitiveness in this multi-trillion-dollar market and its national security, while reducing both greenhouse gas emissions and other environmental hazards," according to a summary of the study, which was three years in the making.

Funding for energy technology ballooned in the past few years thanks to stimulus spending, but its outlook is otherwise bleak.

Many Republicans urged the congressional deficit-reduction "supercommittee" to shrink the federal budget for cutting-edge energy research and loan guarantees. While the 12-member panel's failure could eventually trigger automatic, across-the-board cuts starting in January 2013, the new paper makes the case that energy technology is a wise investment.

The researchers are also recommending an overhaul of the Energy Department-funded national laboratories to make them more entrepreneurial. Letting lab directors steer seed money to the most promising projects would encourage high-risk, high-reward projects, like the ones now being pursued by DOE's Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E.

The Energy Technology Innovation Policy team, which unveiled its work this morning at the American Association for the Advancement of Science headquarters in Washington, D.C., was advised early on by John Holdren, a Harvard professor who has been director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy since 2009.

The advisory board of the Harvard University program includes two other administration officials: Dan Arvizu, who has been director of DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory since 2005; and Marilyn Brown, a Georgia Institute of Technology professor who was appointed by President Obama to the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Click here to read the paper.