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Bill Gates's New Version of the Einstein Letter
dcblogs writes "In 1939, Albert Einstein sent 'F.D. Roosevelt, President of the United States,' a letter with a warning about Germany's interest in a new type of energy with potential for use as a powerful bomb. The letter also outlined the competitive threat posed by Germany and steps for improving US research efforts. Last week, Bill Gates, along with GE's CEO and others, met with President Obama to deliver their own message: that of the top 30 companies in the world working on alternative energy, only four are in the US. Similar to Einstein's point and recommendations, Gates and his allies are asking the US to view the alternative energy push as a competitive threat posed by other nations, particularly China, which may be doing a better job in bringing its engineering talent and money to bear on this problem."
Doesn't the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act include 80 billion over 10 years for alternative energy research rather than the 16 billion the article suggests?
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So outsourcing is working and now Gates wants to bring it back to the US?
Wasn't he one of the ones who pushed for outsourcing?
*Joking for those who can not tell*
When Bill Gate's company and General Electric start paying US taxes I will take them seriously. Until then they can go fuck themselves.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
While I agree with you almost completely, I think it's unfair to judge him based on his motives. Let me put it this way: Imagine yourself 100 years ago, and you had the opportunity to invest in the automobile. Would you do it because you wanted to make sure that cars came around, or because there would be massive profit when cars did come around?
Bill Gates, while motivated by money, is not necessarily evil. The reason he is heavily invested in alternative energy sources is that he KNOWS its coming. He knows oil&gas won't last forever. He knows that Nuclear is our best alternative for the short term here.
Let me put it plainly:
If I had tons of money laying around, and I had a good idea that Nuclear energy was going to take off, I'd be a fool not to invest. Or, even more so, I'd be a fool to push for alternative energy sources without putting any money into them.
I mean, if he spent his entire life building a fortune through his underhanded business tactics at Microsoft only to bring about an environmental revolution, what would you think of him? I haven't yet decided, but I think its unfair to hold such prejudice against someone. People change a lot as they get older.
The free market is notoriously short sighted. This is one of the areas governments are needed.
Nuclear is very competitive if you ignore the problem of storing the waste. Even recycling it is not cost-competitive with mining more fuel, so there is no incentive to do anything but dump it somewhere.
Wind energy this, Solar energy that. It's all fantasy dreamed up by hippies. It may or may not be able to meet a high percentage of our energy needs at some point in the future.
A Nice Dream: http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=portugal+energy+wind
Nuclear power is here now. We know it works. We know it's safe, if done right. Sure, it's expensive, but if we'd invested a few trillion in nuclear power over the last 30 years ago we'd have ended up saving a shitload on foreign wars, cost to the environment from oil spills and pollution, etc...
And have more Three Mile Island and Chernobyl spills. No, I think I prefer an oil spill...
At the rate we're going now, nothing will have changed 20 years from now. Instead, we need to start building nuclear plants and investing in research on portable power like fuel cells so we can use that nuclear power outside of the main power grid.
Portable radiation sources! The solution to overpopulation, guaranteed...
Gates himself is under no such illusion, only the writer of the article. But Gates does know a thing or two about how to motivate politicians. And he *certainly* knows the tech industry (you know, the people who will have to develop this technology). Combine that with his well-respected reputation for philanthropy and you could have a lot worse advocates on your side for something like this than Mr. Gates. He may have a nasty reputation on /., but to the general public there are very few leaders in technology that command the kind of instant respect and name-recognition that he does.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Chernobyl didn't have to happen. They were doing a turbine experiment (pushing them over 100% of design). No containment dome.
There Mile Island -- how many people died????? How many people die in coal mining each year?
I like to introduce some perspective when people say things like free market is not so good for long term projects like basic scientific research. USA government spends less than 1% of the annual budget on science. If you want to keep that and cut out the other 99% (well not all of it, there are few legitimate things in there) I'm sure that even the most zealous free market libertarian will be only too happy with that arrangement.
Btw, while the government money is probably the largest source of funding for science in the US, is it by far not the only one. There is a lot of private money in it as well, including private universities as well as business and wealthy individuals money, be it as donations or as investments. It is possible even that the public money drives out the private money just like in this story. Why should we invest in some risky long term project when we can lobby the government for some free money.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
People need to figure out that there are only two viable sources of energy: burning carbon-based fuels, or nuclear.
Not really, no. There's just burning carbon-based fuels, for any situation you could possibly think of where wind and power aren't viable I can think of a couple where nuclear is a non-starter.
What people need to figure out is that there can't (and doesn't have to) be an "one size fits all" solution to the energy problem, and that investing in only one in detriment of all others will invariably lead to somebody, somewhere, getting royally screwed.
You're right that nuclear fission is the best option right now to supply the most people for the least investment, but this attitude of you and the GP that wind and solar are merely useless "fantasy dreamed up by hippies" needs to go. They do have their place, at least if you want to supply *everybody* instead of merely "most".
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Ah, I see you actually know the history!
Leo Szilard may well have been the greatest mind of the 20th century. He was so damn smart most people never heard of him! And he wasn't severely mentally ill, either - the other thinkers of his time (Tesla, for example) were pretty much bonkers.
So what about solar AND wind AND tidal AND etc., all the diverse environmentally-sound energy production methods, not to mention conservation? Did you calculate all that? Or did you just "generously assume" that only one method of energy production will exist in the future? I'd like to see the cocktail napkin on which these "figures" and "assumptions" are written out.
Here's some nuclear for you:
Leaks spotlight aging nuclear plants
New Wave of Nuclear Plants Faces High Costs
An Old Nuclear Problem Creeps Back
Yeah, there's the obvious business slant to this. Yes, a bunch of business people are pandering to get greedy bucks. But they are also in a panic for reasons that they don't want the public to understand.
I have yet to see someone get a clue, so here it goes.
Energy is the driving force of modern industrial society. What Gates is warning about is "if we don't get our country's ass in gear, we will loose any pretension of being a first-world nation and will have our asses handed to us on a platter as we continue to suck the teet of fossil fuel, while some other country makes a huge breakthrough in energy that allows them to leapfrog us without buying our petrodollars, leading us to a currency devaluation which in turn destabilizes the country"
If you honestly believe that the dollar is propped up by the pixie dust of the Fed then you don't have a clue as to how things function. It's a fiat currency deep in debt and we make the world buy petro products in dollars so that we can "sell" that debt, making it someone else's problem. Any energy source that shifts away from petrodollars is a direct threat to the United States (ever hear of the Carter Doctrine? ever wonder why it came about? hint: oil.) We have sold so many dollars overseas over the last few decades that it would scare you shitless for a week if you thought about what would happen if everyone - and I mean everyone in the world - bailed on the US dollar all at once. It would be a mongolian clusterfuck of epic proportions and leave us in a depression that would make the 1930's look like paradise.
First: Einstein's contribution to the letter was mainly signing it - it was really authored by Leó Szilárd with contributions from Edward Teller and Eugene Wigner.
Second: The atomic bomb is a weapon that could only be created by a government and should only be used by a government and is not be provided to others.
Energy technology can be produced by private industry, used by private industry, and will be traded on the free market to everyone. Even if a Chinese company develops the technology, we (and others) will be able to purchase it and benefit from it. On the other hand, the atomic bomb was not going to be sold to China (or Japan, for that matter, who was ruthlessly occupying China).
One could argue that the US government "should play its part" in solving the global externality of greenhouse gas emission by throwing tax dollars at researchers, but that is a different issue.
The problem I have with this is old Bill could pay for this with the change from his couch but what he wants is a "Goldman Sachs" where if it doesn't work YOU pay, and if it does HE profits! Basically we are talking another scam, oh and for those talking Kyoto? Look up "carbon credit scam" and see how many are already scamming crap and trade, and then think how much worse it would be if it went nationwide. Caps are fine, crap and trade is a scam.
If he is soooo concerned, why don't he show his patriotism and put his money where his mouth is? Oh right, it's about blowing other people's money, and raking the profits in for yourself. Fuck off Billy, you may have been a good businessman when it came to selling Windows, but you always were a greedy little bastard and apparently still are.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I think the real truth is that he only met Warren Buffet recently.
Warren Buffet is as rich as Bill Gates but is a genuinely nice (and humble) guy. He lives in a normal house and drives a normal car (until it wears out!)
OK, he owns a Gulfstream jet, but let's not hold that against him, he's the biggest philanthropist in history and he's had a big influence on BIll Gates over the last decade.
No sig today...
Did you ever notice how many of our great physicists were running from the Nazis? Einstein, Szilard, Teller, probably dozens of lesser scientists. I've always wondered: If the Nazis would have succeeded in getting those scientists, would we have developed the bomb? Was it inevitable, or did it take getting all those super minds in the right place at the right time?
We know that despite what was said during the Manhattan project that the Nazis were far enough behind on Atomic research they may have never built a working bomb, and Japan was wasting time looking at "death rays". The only real advantage the Nazis had by the end was rockets (which we pulled a brain drain thanks to Operation Paperclip) so it always makes me wonder how much different our world would have been if the NSDAP had never existed.
As for TFA the ONLY way I would go for it is if ALL patents created using tax dollars belong to We, The People. But knowing the way business "works" here in the USA today they more likely want mama government to take all the risks, while they take all the spoils. Yeah, no thanks.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
In 1994, Bill Gates gave an interview to Playboy. He stated then that he was going to give away his money. In it he says:
PLAYBOY: Does your net worth of multi-billions, despite the fact that it's mostly in stock and the value varies daily, boggle your mind?
GATES: It's a ridiculous number. But remember, 95 percent of it I'm just going to give away. [Smiles] Don't tell people to write me letters. I'm saving that for when I'm in my 50s. It's a lot to give away and it's going to take time.
PLAYBOY: Where will you donate it?
GATES: To charitable things, scientific things. I don't believe in burdening any children I might have with that. They'll have enough. They'll be comfortable.
http://beginnersinvest.about.com/od/billgates/l/blbillgatesint5.htm
Nuclear fission waste has to be guarded for millenia, because you can build dirty bombs from it, or unscrupulous companies will smelt it (metals) into other products. In addition, we, everyone we on the planet, get to enjoy all the threats of war that surround access and development of nuclear fission technology. And they already are poisoning vast areas because of the weapons they make from so called and only partially "depleted" uranium. In the headlines all the time, threats of war over who can have nuclear fission tech or who can't. This sucks, it's a new type of cold war that can turn hot overnight and really bork things up *bad*. All nations want it mostly, but they have to be "approved" by the first adopters, and that pisses them off so they go sneaky and develop it anyway, which makes other nations think they should too, etc.. And that is definitely part of nuclear fission technology, you simply cannot ignore that aspect of it, all the parts make the whole, but it apparently is common to do so, people tend to fixate on just cost of producing electricity, and ignore threats of war over access to the tech and long term storage of the waste and guarding it, etc.. It is extremely contentious and dangerous technology because of those reasons. I don't like that, it would be real nice if it could be used safely and safer and developed better, but it is reality so we shouldn't ignore it.
Coal waste and smoke sucks too, for all the normal reasons. That's why I am in favor of using our only practical nuclear *fusion* technology, which is solar, both PV and thermal. All the other laser magnetic plasma bubble containment whatever fusion tech is still decades/generations away (I mean when I was a kid in the 50s they were talking about it and promising it..let us check the calendar...), we shouldn't wait for that to be developed to switch to fusion power. We *have* fusion power right now, let's use it, make it better/faster/cheaper. Sure, more research in those other areas, but solar just needs economies of scale now more than anything else to get loads cheaper.
And if we had 100% tax credits for it now, you couldn't stop the deluge of new companies and jobs getting it out there working. Not ten percent or even thirty, but a full 100% credit, say extended for five or ten years up to a practical amount, like 25 to 50 grand.
I know I would *much* rather see a trillion dollars going out into direct solar deployment, rather than a trillion dollars sucked out of the economy for wall street's dream ticket, the universal carbon tax and cap and trade conjob.
It's going to be the same trillion dollars, so I'd rather it went to tens of millions of new panels and whatnot everywhere than to keep funding goldman sachs and those other billionaire thieves in the wall street thieves guild. They are just drooling over carbon cap and trade, which should say something about how practical that is(n't).
To expand on this.
It's not only petroleum, it's all the commodities from steel to cocoa.
The elephant in the room that everyone is studiously ignoring while it begins to munch on the Canapés is that 'we' are currently living off several centuries of investment.
In 'the west' - since around the beginning of the industrial revolution, we have been putting down infrastructure that enables us to compete now - somewhat - on a global scale with other countries with vastly lower labour costs.
The somewhat is there now - due to the truly massive amount of money that is owed to china and other countries.
The standard of living in china/india/... is rising.
Not for everyone, but probably for a majority.
As the incomes in the developing world rise, their purchasing power for global commodities for their own markets rises.
And the cost of their labour to the 'west' skyrockets.
This leads to a 'perfect storm'.
Currently all major manufacturing - with some exceptions - is offshore, as it's cheaper.
Imagine that nothing is done.
Chinas economy takes off, and keeps experiencing double digit growth for a couple of decades, due to growth of an internal market. Perhaps india does similar. (the same argument works if it's slower over 50 years).
The purchasing power of the west for all commodities including oil plummets.
If we're spending - now - 5% of GDP on oil, and then the demand for oil rises hugely, while US purchasing power drops, we could find ourselves spending 20% of GDP on oil, at the very same time that we're frantically trying to move our heavy industry back onshore.
The time to act is now - when we are doing well. We need to reduce fuel imports - and other commodities - not because of the environment - but because in well under a couple of generations we won't be able to afford them.
If we can halve fuel imports - then that means that we do not have to spend precious - and increasingly more so - foreign currency on fuel.
My personal view is that a truly massive nuclear building program is the sensible way out.
Truly massive as in large enough to completely replace all of the electricity generation, and to move all fixed consumers of oil/gas onto electricity.
We have only a limited time to do this, before our purchasing power that would make this 'easy' runs out with the world.