Not to mention research accumulates knowledge that can be tapped into later.

If it can't get out of the lab and onto the market today, there could be separate breakthroughs in the future that could help it.

Think of all those headlines of creating things with graphene and carbon nanotubes.

It's hyped up as this big revolutionary material that will change our society, but we can't make it at a cost effective scale.

If we ever do make it at scale, then we have so many practical uses ready to try out.

Or if we can't make it at scale, maybe we can find a very niche, but viable use for them that is worth the extremely high cost of them.