U.K. researchers have mixed reactions to a call for a new national energy research center. A government panel reviewing energy policy last week recommended that a new center is needed to energize studies of power use, production, and environmental and social issues. Chemist David King of the University of Cambridge, the government's chief scientist and head of a subpanel that looked at energy research, says the center would help pull together a "broad menu" of new energy technology studies. But Ian Fells, an energy expert at the University of Newcastle, favors a more decentralized approach that would boost energy research at "half a dozen" local research centers. That is just one funding model currently being studied by the U.K.'s research councils, which oversee government science spending.
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No final decision is expected soon. The energy panel's recommendations are now open for public comment, and a final long-term strategic plan is due later this year.
