Is Cost-Effective Deep Reinforcement Learning Possible?

"Is there scientific value in conducting empirical research in reinforcement learning when restricting oneself to small- to mid-scale environments?" Can a research done on a smaller computational budget can provide valuable scientific insights? Given the insane training times and budgets, it is natural to wonder if anything worthwhile in AI comes at a small price. So far, the researchers have focused on the training costs of language models which have become too large. But, what about the deep reinforcement learning(RL) algorithms -the brains behind autonomous cars, warehouse robots and even the AI that beat chess grandmasters?