In the 1980s, the federal government pursued two different R&D efforts for wind turbine development. The first was a “big science” effort by NASA and the Department of Energy (DOE) to use U.S. expertise in high-technology research and products to develop new large-scale wind turbines for electricity generation, largely from scratch.[28] A second, more successful R&D effort, sponsored by the DOE, focused on component innovations for smaller turbines that used the operational experience of existing turbines to inform future research agendas. Joint research projects between the government and private firms produced a number of innovations that helped increase the efficiency of wind turbines, including twisted blades and special-purpose airfoils.