The Brookings Institute — the Washington, DC-based think tank — on Wednesday released a report with a very fancy title: “Centers of Invention: Leveraging the Mountain West Innovation Complex for Energy System Transformation.” Luckily for readers, the stuff covered by the paper’s authors, Mark Muro and Sarah Rahman, is light on the fancy and a bit heavier on pragmatic policy.

The two suggest that the best way to address America’s energy challenges is to encourage collaboration among the world’s smartest brains. In Muro’s and Rahman’s eyes, a handful of western states are particularly well suited to play host:

America needs to transform its energy system to reduce its carbon intensity and make clean energy cheap. At the same time, the Intermountain West region (which includes Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, New Mexico, Nevada, and Utah) possesses a unique confluence of world-class innovation assets; varied energy resources; and unparalleled opportunities to build out next-generation energy systems.

To that end, the brief proposes that the federal government begin constructing a dis- tributed Intermountain West network of federally-funded, commercialization-oriented, broadly collaborative energy research and innovation centers.

What’s wrong with the country’s current approach to energy research and development? Several things, apparently.

According to the report, federal funding for energy-related research is insufficient. (I know, I know — that last thing that anyone wants to hear in these days of deficit is that the federal government isn’t spending enough money.) But, as the authors point out, despite a relatively massive injection of federal dollars via the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), annual spending on non-defense energy-related research averages around $3 billion under normal circumstances. This represents “less than a quarter of the 1980 investment level when measured as a share of national GDP.”

Second, the “character and format” of federal energy R&D remain “inadequate.” (Clearly, the authors aren’t out to make friends at the Department of Energy…) What’s more, the federal approach has generally failed to realize the potential of a regional approach. On this front, the authors promote breaking down the barriers that typically exist between the laboratory and the rest of the world — namely, the market — and encouraging a regionally coordinated approach. The following chart illustrates what Muro and Rahman are proposing:

Notably absent is California, the undisputed leader in the U.S. cleantech R&D and home to leading institutions like Stanford, UC Berkeley and CalTech. Texas, too, is left out — this despite Texas Tech’s renewable energy-related efforts. The big guys can fend for themselves, it seems.

One more interesting quote:

[T]he research intensity — and so the innovation intensity — of the energy sector remains woefully insufficient. Currently, for example, the energy sector devotes no more than 0.3 percent of its revenues to R&D. Such a figure lags far behind the 2.0 percent of sales committed to R&D by the health care sector, the 2.4 percent by agriculture, and the 10 percent by information technology and pharmaceutical industries.

I found this somewhat surprising.

Anyway, all in all, the paper is worth a read (and it’s not too long). If the Mountain West Innovation Complex is brought into being as the Brooking Institute is envisioning — and provided it yields technologies that generate cheaper, cleaner energy – it’s sure to have plenty of backers in the long run.