What I like best about Rumsfeld’s famous Unknown Poem — is that it describes accurately the rationale for three funding mechanisms for leading edge R&D.

Here is an example of DOD funding under rationale number 2: known unknowns.

Bell Bio-Energy, Inc. says it has reached an agreement with the U.S. Defense Department to build seven test production plants, mostly on military bases, to quickly turn naturally grown material into fuel.

“What this means is that with the seven pilot plants – the military likes to refer to them as demonstrations – with those being built … it gives us the real-time engineering data that we need to finish the designs for a full-scale production facility,” J.C. Bell, the man behind the project, told WND today.

“In 18 months or so, we will start manufacturing oil directly from waste and we will build up to about 500,000 barrels a day within two years. In another six months, we’ll reach a million barrels a day.”

As the United States now imports about 13 million barrels of oil a day, the only obstacle then to total energy independence from foreign sources will be the money needed to develop the processing plants, he said.

“Working with the USDA we’ve identified enough waste material around the country, we truly believe we can make the United States totally energy independent of foreign countries in about five years,” he said.