Funding for Research and Development in any given industry or technology is considered essential to its ongoing competitiveness and longevity. This paper analyzes the allocation of federal R&D funding for energy between 2000 and 2012. The results show that funding for energy R&D is very volatile for both the aggregate energy research types, such as coal or nuclear power, and specific research areas, such as carbon capture and sequestration or nuclear waste reprocessing. While overall funding levels are often sources of frustration, budgetary volatility may be as much of a problem. (c) 2014 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.