I am one of those who thinks R&D always pays off. We pi$$ away billions on social programs that don't actually produce any measurable improvement, we pour money down the hole to produce "performance art" that does little more than offend me, and yet we can't get fusion power to work. I am not an "electric car" guy, but if we could run them for a dollar a day from fusion plants, I'd buy one. (And can you imagine the furor in the Mideast if the Shieks were suddenly sitting on worthless and obsolete black goo?)
I still can't decide if we should keep the patent and tell the world to go to hell, or if we should publish the plans on the internet and get the hell out of the way. Hummmmm....
America could be so far ahead in almost every area of science and technology that the rest of the world would need to hire scouts to see which way we went. But instead we are keeping just barely ahead. Got to wonder why. Maybe there is a good reason.