On Tuesday both the United States Vice President's office and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued separate reports about the impact of the Recovery Act of 2009.

In general the CBO report was favorable. Its estimates of how much the Recovery Act will increase deficits over 10 years increased by some $27 billion compared to its original estimates (issued when the law was passed), but it concluded that the economy would be worse off without the stimulus package. It also estimates that the law increased gross domestic product by between 1.7% and 4.5% in the most recent quarter (from April to June). And that the law lowered the unemployment rate by between 0.7 percentage points and 1.8 percentage points and increased the number of people employed by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million.

The Vice President's report was even more positive. It claimed, for example, that because of Recovery Act investments the US is on track to cut the cost of solar power in half by 2015. It also claimed that, "With $8 billion dollars in funding, the Recovery Act is beginning to make high-speed rail reality across the country." That might be a stretch. High-speed rail will require billions more in non-federal investment to become a reality.

The Recovery Act has indeed helped kick start significant research projects and led to the groundbreaking on several factories for advanced energy products. But to meet its long-term goals of creating a strong and vibrant economy based on clean energy, what's most important is not necessarily what's happened so far, but what will happen in the next couple of years. Will the investments started with the Recovery Act continue? Or will they dry up under budgetary pressures? What's more, will incentives be put in place, such as a price on carbon, help drive market adoption of new green technologies?

For a close analysis of the impact of the Recovery Act, check out this review in the current issue of Technology Review magazine.

In an attempt to promote electric vehicles, a federally funded program will give away 4,600 charging stations to electric car buyers and business owners in nine metropolitan areas across the country, according to Coulomb Technologies, the Campbell, CA-based company that will provide the stations.

About 2000 of the charging stations will be installed in homes, where they can cut charging times in half compared to just plugging a car into a standard 110 volt outlet. The rest will be given to business owners for public charging stations. The business owners can use them to turn a profit via a payment system. Although the charging stations are free--paid for by a $15 million grant from last year's Recovery Act--owners will have to pay for installation.

To sign up or get more information about the charging stations, go to the ChargePoint America website here. The systems will be available in Austin, TX, Detroit, Los Angeles, New York, Orlando, FL., Sacramento, CA., the San Jose/San Francisco Bay Area, Redmond, WA, and Washington DC.

On Thursday the Obama administration announced awards for its high-speed rail program, started under last year's stimulus bill, and $8 billion will be distributed among nine "major corridor" projects.

These corridors are meant to connect major cities in various regions. They won't offer cross-country trips, and that makes sense--for longer trips, air travel will probably be more appealing. It's not clear, however, that high-speed rail will catch on across a country whose infrastructure is heavily geared toward cars. What will people do once they step off the train in Los Angeles? Maybe some fearless entrepreneur will set up an electric car rental service at the station.

Of course, $8 billion scattered among all these projects won't be enough to get the lines built. It'd be sad if the money to finish them doesn't come through and twenty years from now we've got no more to show for the investment than some dead-end high speed rail tracks overgrown with weeds.