This will be interesting to watch. For years Bill Gates has been saying that the climate change issue has a (conceptually) simple solution: search for technology that makes energy sources cheaper than carbon-based energy. Then the market will take care of replacing the good with the bad. All it takes is 100 or so well funded research projects, or enough projects to bring the chances of success close to a certainty.
Now he's organized his chance to pursue that strategy. He's organized base funding from both government and private sources to fund research and deployment. Roughly speaking $20B from government for basic research, and a matching amount for related commercial investments.
Here are some links for details:
- Bill Gates launches multi-billion dollar clean energy fund (cnn)
- Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, and more are teaming up to invest in revolutionary renewable energy (business insider)
- Facebook: Breakthrough Energy Coalition (facebook)
- Breakthrough Energy Coalition to Invest in Zero-Carbon Energy Technologies (pr newswire)
- Gates, Zuckerberg and Bezos invest in huge clean energy fund (engadget)
- Major powers pledge $20bn for green energy research (the guardian)
- Mark Zuckerberg And Bill Gates Join Forces To Invest In Clean Energy Technology (tech crunch)
- Obama, Bill Gates to lead major effort to spur spending on climate research (washington post)
Source websites, put up by the initiative:
A somewhat critical review from Joe Romm: