“More capital at the early stage is going to drive the breakthroughs that will drive costs down”, said Brian Deese, Obama’s senior adviser on climate change who announced the private-public sector initiative to reporters in Washington.
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Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg have announced that they are forming a new organization known as the Breakthrough Energy Coalition that will invest in renewable energy technologies.
According to the news outlet, The Next Web, Gates, Zuckerberg and the rest of the businessmen who have joined the organization will work with different countries who have submitted themselves to commit with the development of this zero-emissions technology.
While Australia’s investment in clean technology research and development will double to $200 million a year, the government is still planning to abolish the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, two of the major players in the sector.
Besides Tata and Ambani, Jack Ma of China’s Alibaba Group, Richard Branson of UK’s Virgin Group, Meg Whitman of Hewlett Packard, Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures of the US, Chris Hohn of The Children’s Investment Fund of the United Kingdom and University of California are the other investors in the Gates-led coalition.
The day India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi pitched for having carbon space for poor and developing nations to grow economically, the software giant Microsoft’s founder Bill Gates on Monday too aligned himself with such concerns and told TOI in an exclusive interview that as long as the clean energy cost more than the fossil fuel-based energy, it would be very hard for countries like India to shift to the low or zero carbon growth path just for green reason.
Gates said it would take a decade to develop up to three breakthrough technologies, and a further 20 years before the technologies become commercialized and produced for the energy market.
U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said securing support for more R&D funding may remain a challenge in a Republican-dominated Congress. Republicans have vowed to push back against Obama’s climate agenda by withholding funds the administration pledges in Paris for climate aid to poor countries. But the fund represents billions in money to seed promising ideas in large-scale clean energy production. Its investment field would cover power generation and power storage, transport, industry, agriculture, as well the improvement of energy systems efficiency.
The French presidency source said India will be one of the founding beneficiaries of the new initiative.
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For example, Gates says more research is needed in new kinds of batteries – “flow batteries” – that he says hold more promise than current battery technology. “It will benefit the environment, our society and the economy”.
