For over three decades, worldwide R&D expenditure has risen steadily, reaching $1.3 trillion in 2011. Underlying this unprecedented growth is a deeply-held belief that R&D is a prime mover of economic growth.
Ironically, despite three decades of massive R&D expenditure, growth levels have remained substantially lower than that of the immediate post World War II period.
We find that with economic growth by innovation limited by physical conditions, increasing the rate of economic growth can only come through increasing the rate of energy consumption.
