But who allocates the funds?

From 'the Economist', in a feature about climate change:

Energy firms do not spend a lot on research because there is no product differentiation in energy (electrons are electrons) and thus nothing exciting to sell until the price falls below that of the existing technology. So taxpayers will have to stump up most of the cash. If more money were forthcoming, a good deal of it would be wasted on dead-end projects. But that is the nature of research and development. Second-best solutions, 'the Economist', 28 November

I'm not sure whether funding research into alternative ways of generating electricity is a goal that ordinary people would find meaningful. But putting that aside, and assuming that 'taxpayers will have to stump up most of the cash', there are better ways of allocating that funding than via the usual activity-based, outcomes-don't-matter, formula that typifies government research programmes.

My proposal would be for the government to do what it's good at: (1) raising the necessary funding and (2) specifying a goal to be achieved, but then to bow out and allow a motivated private sector to allocate the funding to its chosen projects - something that economic theory, and all the evidence, suggest it can do more efficiently than the central planners in government. Social Policy Bonds could directly target cleaner electricity production, though I'd prefer they target broader and more obviously meaningful goals. Either way, a bond regime would lead to diverse, adaptive projects and bondholders would have powerful incentives to back only the most efficient ways of achieving whatever goal is specified. When government allocates funding, all sorts of criteria other than maximising returns per taxpayer dollar creep in. And we don't need to go beyond the energy sector to see that.