The Department of Energy has announced its selection of 23 businesses and 13 educational institutions to allocate roughly $151 million dollars in the first round of grants for Advanced Research Projects - Energy (Arpa-E). This funding will go to the advancement of projects such as liquid metal batteries that will drive down cost, creating bacteria that could naturally produce gasoline, and crystal growth technology research for low cost LED lighting. The graphic above describes the investment in research by the US government over the past 56 years in selected fields.