Bill Gates urges US to put billions behind energy revolution Washington (AFP) June 13, 2010 Microsoft founder Bill Gates urged the United States Sunday to invest billions of dollars a year to bring about a clean energy revolution that would free it from dependence on oil. In an interview with ABC "This Week," Gates said the disastrous oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico raises the question "how did we get an energy infrastructure that is this fragile?" Gates and his American Energy Innovation Council last week called for an 11-billion-dollar increase in annual investment in research and development into clean energy technology to 16 billion dollars a year. "You know, we've got a supply chain where we send a billion dollars a year overseas and you can imagine that there will be disruptions," he said. "But, in fact, the only real solution is to take American ingenuity and fund R&D to get energy in different forms (so) that we're not sending this much money away and that it's stable and reliable," he said. The AEIC report released June 9 called for a public commitment to funding innovation in clean energy sources, arguing that individual companies are unlikely to make huge investments needed to make new energy sources commercially viable. But Gates acknowledged that the US budget was tight. "The question is can the energy sector finance its own revolution and create these great R&D jobs here in America?" he said. "The only way you get those things is through the breakthroughs. And I'm optimistic they're there, but we're not making the investment," Gates said. "Today we spend only about four billion dollars on energy R&D compared to 30 billion dollars on health, 80 billion dollars on defense."
Share This Article With Planet Earth
Related Links Powering The World in the 21st Century at Energy-Daily.com
Cyclone Power Technologies Receives Fifth U.S. Patent Pompano Beach FA (SPX) Jun 10, 2010 Cyclone Power Technologies has announced that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has issued a Notice of Patent Allowance on the centrifugal condenser of the Company's heat regenerative external combustion engine. The patented centrifugal condenser, comprised in part of 40 stacked aluminum plates with over 60 sq.ft. of total surface space, serves to quickly and efficiently cool the steam ... read more |
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2010 - SpaceDaily. AFP and UPI Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse and United Press International. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any Web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |