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Why Bill Gates Is Dumping Another $1 Billion Into Clean Energy
An anonymous reader writes: A little over a month ago, Bill Gates made headlines when he decided to double down on his investments in renewable energy. Now, he's written an article for Quartz explaining why: "I think this issue is especially important because, of all the people who will be affected by climate change, those in poor countries will suffer the most. Higher temperatures and less-predictable weather would hurt poor farmers, most of whom live on the edge and can be devastated by a single bad crop. Food supplies could decline. Hunger and malnutrition could rise. It would be a terrible injustice to let climate change undo any of the past half-century's progress against poverty and disease — and doubly unfair because the people who will be hurt the most are the ones doing the least to cause the problem." He also says government is not doing enough to fund such research, and that energy markets aren't doing a good enough job of factoring the negative effects of carbon emissions.
well, yeah.
Does anyone remember when Bill Gates was evil?
Why use the word "dumping"? Sounds incredibly biased to me.
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
No sig today...
Having consistent power to refrigerate vaccines and medicines, and sterilize needles is critical to curing diseases worldwide.
Moving to a more decentralized approach of clean power generation allows areas with major health problems from disease to leapfrog past other countries. And because they're not that useful in warfare, if done on a mass produced level and inexpensively, it makes it easy enough to maintain (just train people to fix them and install them, and set them on resupply and maintenance runs, with text messages for "out of supplies" or "power running low" or "diagnostic error code physical problem") using burst relay communications.
Same goes for water. The Gates Foundation has demonstrated they could mass produce clean water supplies from ... basically sewage (human wastes). They just need power supplies to run those. If you roll out solar worldwide in mass quantities you drop the cost to maintain and install low enough. And you can use such devices to charge phones that use low energy communications. Most diseases in poor nations involve lack of clean drinking water. If you can't get clean drinking water locally but you can get it free from one of these devices, you'll use that. Nobody wants their babies to die.
Doesn't matter if it won't charge your phone at night when it needs power to run the fridges, so long as you make it modular.
Very good idea.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Yeah, I think it was less than two months ago when he announced he was still not going to divest from fossil fuels. http://www.washingtontimes.com...
So maybe he's moving from evil to hypocrite?
didn't we just have an article posted on here where someone pointed out that the efficiency from end-to-end of charging a mobile phone is something like *16* percent? ... so why is bill gates investing in an area of least efficiency? it makes me wonder, y'know - when people get a lot of money (like google throwing money at project ara to help create and entrench existing monopoly positions around the UniPro standard), they often don't think "how can this problem be solved in a way that *doesn't* need a lot of money?" not so as to be stingy, but so that creativity is applied instead of brute force, if you know what i mean. just because you *can* solve the *production* of energy doesn't mean that you shouldn't be looking at solving the reduction of energy *consumption*.
Just like most really rich guys. Trying like hell to clean his dark soul from what he did to get that rich.
Carnegie was a horrible horrible human being, he tried to buy his soul back with all the "giving back".
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
I hope he is investing in storage technology. Too many solar panels don't help at night.
Collecting and exploiting everyone's private data from most of the worlds desktop users requires energy... lots of it. Ask the NSA about their troubles with the grid. Bill is just doing his portfolio a favor by working to make more sources of energy available.
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"Finally, we will access, disclose and preserve personal data, including your content (such as the content of your emails, other private communications or files in private folders), when we have a good faith belief that doing so is necessary."
It's his own money. Who cares if it's a fallacy? The reality is, eventually we're going to need to switch to renewable energy. Non-renewable energy will run out by definition.
So if he wants to put his money into that, it might make the world a better place. And if it ends up with cheaper energy for everybody, it will make the world a better place. The cheaper energy becomes, the better.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Weather changes naturally therefore human-caused weather change does not exist?
Lightning causes fire naturally therefore humans do not "have enough power" to create fire.
I'm pretty sure there are clear probable causes to the climate change in Egypt and they have to do with the end of the last ice age. Now, what causes ice ages? There's many theories but no one knows. Many theories, such as the changing of Earth's eccentricity, have a good reasoned basis supported by evidence. Others, like crustal displacement, are completely speculative. The truth is, nobody knows, and with regards to anthropomorphic planet warming: it doesn't matter. The question is: do emission from our industrial society impact the climate? I'm not an expert in the field, but nearly all the actual experts seem to agree that they do.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
alarmist extremists [...] not only think that climate change is man made but that it has only existed for a hundred years.
I don't know who you mean by "alarm extremists", so I can't comment on your claim.
I (and most rational, informed people) agree with your inference that changes in the climate are natural, and consequently have been occurring for as long as there has been a climate. Arid lands have become fertile and vice versa.
The "alarming" thing (for informed, environmentally conscious people) about current and projected climate changes is their scale (both in geographic spread and systematic variation in weather patterns) and the speed with which these changes occur. Human induced greenhouse gas emissions and land-use changes are a significant driver of the magnitude and speed of these changes (95% of scientists, etc., thousands of peer reviewed scientific articles, specific citation surely not needed.)
The reason these changes are "alarming" is that the Earth's climate is currently fairly friendly to humans - tropical diseases remain in the tropics, food crops are fairly reliable, flooding destroys vast swathes of land slower than can be repaired, etc. All these things are changing with the changes in climate, changing for the worse. So your inference about climate change being natural is true (and unchallenged), however it is irrelevant to those of us who care about reducing climate changes to improve the living conditions for humanity.
(a) he can afford it, (b) it keeps his name in the news. In a good way, I mean.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"May choose"
Oh man the whole point of this is to force everyone to follow whether they need it or not.
People have been able to change the environment for ages (and the climate depends somewhat on the environment). Deforestation and overgrazing, for example. Done on a large enough scale such things will change the climate downwind. Vegetation affects the albedo and temperature and rate of evaporation and also particulates and volatile organic compounds -- global CO2 changes are not the only way to affect climate.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
this seems like a noble thing to do. So why am I left with this feeling that he is still a crooked, slimy sleazeball? I've said this before but this is straight out of the Robber Baron playbook.
Act 1 - make as much money as humanly possible. If you have to screw people over or even break laws along the way, so be it.
Act 2 - turn into a philanthropist and give some of it back. Note: not ALL of it, SOME of it.
In the end, most people have short memories and will only remember the last act not the first.
I'm not saying that he hasn't done anything good with his money. He has. But he's still a crook.
And renewables have probably hit the point where they're profitable. We know this because power companies have called them out as a risk factor in their SEC filings. It does bother me that we let the 1% toss that kinda money round willy-nilly though.
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I see, because one thing happened once in one time, then 99% of scientists are wrong about climate change!!! Genius!!!
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Man has never had enough power to turn the weather "back" to reclaim the inland growing area of Egypt.
Man never used to be able to fly, or communicate across continents or take detailed photos of the surface of other worlds either yet here we are. And none of those feats were achieved by people who gave up trying.
Climate is complicated, but not impossible.
Bringing people out of poverty is part of stabilizing the population. True story.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
But, as recent history has shown, government politicians may choose to force the reset of us to follow his lead. And that should not be allowed.
Why not? If it turns out to be a good idea, then should the government ignore it at its own peril just out of principle?
Sorry if you are comprehension challenged and just dislike anything that might contradict your opinion.
Here are a few things that might help you in the future.
Anecdote : an account regarded as unreliable or hearsay
Speculation: ideas or guesses about something that is not known
That would be verified historical evidence.
What you are citing as rebuttal is speculation.
"Speculation?" That's a highly disingenuous dismissal of the efforts of thousands of scientists who have devoted their careers to uncovering the truth.
Science is hard. Dismissing what scientists say is easy.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Science is not a religion learn the difference.
I want to add if the rains never return to Calif, this will be very serious. I agree the climate is changing and if people want to deny or argue against... but again if the rains don't return? Why are we having arguments about climate change?
mfwright@batnet.com
Science is not a religion learn the difference.
I assure you, I'm quite aware of the difference. More than you are, I suspect.
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
And, he's dumping far more money into slashdot to make sure he's being talked about.. so yeah, who cares? It's making slashdot a better place!
So I suppose dominating the world with Windows for all those years was worth it?
"Laugh while you can a-monkey boy!" - Dr Emilio Lizardo
Because private generosity is supposed to decrease public expenditures, not enlarge them.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
The alarmism is a figment of their imaginations despite the fact that emperical evidence has consistently proven long term predictions of every kind wrong for over 50 years now.
Yeah in 1988 they predicted that temperatures would continue to rise if we kept burning coal. How wrong was that? Temperatures have plummeted and we are now back down to pre-industrial revolution levels, aren't we?
Fuckin' alarmists, they got out of Pompeii at the first sign of trouble and spread their damn alarmist genes through the population.
I want to add if the rains never return to Calif, this will be very serious.
It seems unlikely that the rains will never return. The more serious threat of climate change over the longer term is that drought patterns may be exacerbated.
Those claiming that rains will not only find themselves discredited when the rains return (as they assuredly will), they will have provided more ammunition to those determined to stymie meaningful action on anthropogenic Global Warming. Don't do it!
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
I for one welcome Bill Gates, our new overlord. So far he seems better than the old overlord.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
Just like most really rich guys. Trying like hell to clean his dark soul from what he did to get that rich.
The entrepreneur --- the empire builder --- has more fun than almost anyone and accomplishes more than most. He tends to exit the stage as exuberant and self-confident as when he entered it.
New York Architecture Images - The Chrysler Building
Unless you take the money you've made and do something that contradicts conservative dogma (climate change), at which point your previously unimpeachable opinions are all wrong and you are wasting (i.e. dumping) your fortune. Obviously you have had some sort of mental breakdown. You and your projects are then open to endless criticism. All that stuff about the freedom to spend your money any way you want goes right out the window (or Windows in this case).
Hypocritical much?
Why is Snark Required?
Prevalent does not mean what you think it means.
Is that some kind of law or something?
*Why* is private generosity "supposed" to decrease public expenditures?
Temperatures have plummeted
SOURCE ?
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
Why can't ./ reliably use the Bill the Borg icon he earned over the years? What has happened to ./? Is anyone left over there?
One of the richest farmland valleys in the world gave great wealth to its country and did so for "eons."
Then a change in the weather caused rainfall to drop by 30% and eventually by something around 80% and the farmland wealth 'evaporated.'
This all occurred a couple thousand years or more before Christ, when the inland valley that was originally a terrific growing area suffered a natural change of world weather which dried it up. That was not caused by man-made activity. It can and will happen again. Man has never had enough power to turn the weather "back" to reclaim the inland growing area of Egypt.
Quoting you in full because you were modded "troll".
And reading Gates' piece, he exactly admits this. Wind and solar can't get us there, and the climate changes ANYWAY. So for Gates, the ACTUAL problem, which he says, is very simple: we all need cheap abundant energy.
And that's where environmentalism splits into the two threads: man is a scourge and we need to deindustrialise and stop growth, v. all human beings, wherever they are born, deserve health and prosperity.
When a natural disaster hits a poor country, it doesn't have the resources to cope, and many people die. When a natural disaster hits a wealthy country, people cope far better. For starters, they probably have better building codes. And then, they have better emergency services and so on. That's the kind of help that the poor of the world need against any and all disasters.
And to get that they need development and resources and to get there cheaply and quickly. Ie. better technology.
Of course some new tech brings new evils, but if you think the world is overpopulated, and over consuming, what you gonna do? Tell people to just stop? That only delays the inevitable. And it is inevitable if you don't invent better tech.
Humanity has always been fighting for survival in the environment. We ill go the way of the dinosaurs if we can't invent better tech. Anything else is just delaying the an inevitable collapse.
Earth is a system with nuclear energy inputs (Sun, internal decay) that in human time scales are effectively endless. Limited, but endless. That's all there is to it.
Please engage sarcasm detector, then read it again.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
O child of privilege and leisure, you really have not a blessed clue, have you?
The poor are the MOST affected by climate change. For example, they can't just turn on the A/C or hop in the SUV and drive up to the Poconos to cool off when it's too hot for comfort, like you can. And most likely do.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Just like other oligarchs such as Buffett and Musk, he's learned it's less risky and there's more money to be made from government intervention/subsidies than from actually selling a product that people may or may not find useful.
Sadly -- and I do mean sadly -- the effect of CO2 on "the poor" is never accurately or fairly tallied.
If it were, the tally would have to begin with the massive amount of greenhouse research on the positive effects of CO_2 on plant growth, research that demonstrates (for example) that it is easily cost-beneficial to buy apparatus to maintain a CO2 concentration over 1000 ppm in actual greenhouses. By raising atmospheric CO2 from 280 to 400 ppm, we have in fact raised crop yields worldwide by between 10 and 15%. Close to 1 billion people dined last night on the extra crop yields (all things being equal) produced by the extra carbon dioxide. It is difficult to put a price tag on this generally neglected benefit, simply because it is so enormous. It is a benefit not only to humans -- it pervades the entire biosphere with very few exceptions. Different types of plants don't all respond equally to increases in CO2, but they all respond positively and everything from the grass in your front yard to food crops to trees are growing faster and more every year. It also has secondary benefits -- plants raised in a CO2 rich environment tend to be more drought resistant as the extra carbon dioxide causes the plant's need to respire to reduce, so it retains water longer. There is evidence that this is already impacting deserts by greening their edges.
Then there are the benefits of the electricity produced. So far, the benefits of making electricity (and other products) burning coal have included things like "building civilization". The lack of the benefits of electricity are one of the fundamental things that make the global poor (the poorest third of the world's population) poor in the first place. Cheap and abundant electricity means clean water, sewage treatment, inexpensive fertilizer, cooking on something other than dried dung or charcoal, light after dark, refrigeration, transportation, jobs and manufacturing, health care, and access to communication, education, information, and entertainment. At the very least, the lack of reliable and affordable sources of electricity means the general lack of most or all of these things. The people reading this post (many of whom will, I'm sure, already be gathering their nuclear device flames:-) would, I would wager, forgo flaming this post if the cost of dong so would be spending one single month living in a mud hut in north India without electricity or one single one of the products electricity enables (such as clean water).
Anything that raises the cost of electricity and imposes barriers to its cost-effective implementation in the world's poorest countries has the direct and immediate effect of hurting the poorest people of the world far more than all of the "climate change" that has thus far been attributed to increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, even if you are willing to attribute every single storm or heat wave to climate change instead of acknowledging that the data on storms itself (over a pitifully short interval of accurately recorded history) provides almost no evidence for change, let alone attributable negative impact.
One can easily understand why China and India are investing in coal burning power plants at a ratio of something like two parts new coal generation capacity to one part everything else (including nuclear) put together. Unlike Mr. Gates, they can do the human arithmetic. Even though their coal plants are comparatively dirty and have directly observable negative impacts, those impacts pale beside the benefits of the reliable electricity they produce, and like it or not, wind and solar are thus far neither reliable (in terms of having a high quality of service duty cycle) nor (generally) cost effective when directly compared to the delivered cost of coal generated electricity. If they were, China would invest even more heavily in them as they are doing the math without the saving-the-world sentiment.
With all of that said, it is still absolutely
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
If you are both politically conservative (American style) and an AGW denier (*) it's a very common device to distract with accounts of nature-generated climate change, as if the existence of the natural phenomenon implies that the manmade phenomenon could not also exist. I wouldn't have broadened this discussion in the way Required Snark did but if you're familiar at all with the way these topics go you'll understand why he did.
* I tried to word this in the most accurate fashion possible. Not all conservatives are AGW deniers, not all AGW deniers are conservatives; even if you do live in the intersection, you don't necessarily use the sloppy rhetoric that I laid out.
"Speculation," You mean like everything in your post...
But you seem to be adhering to religion, so your point is....
And you are a Luddite...
Get off your ass and look it up. It's not hard to fine. IPCC would be a start or NOAA.
As I said, prevalent does not mean what you think it means. I understood the intent behind your sentence perfectly well. I just despaired, ever so slightly, about your mangling of the English language.
I get that. But you implied there was a causative link: if the private sector spends money on X, then the government will spend less money. Hence why I asked if there was some kind of law you were invoking, eg an economic dictum.
Saying the valley died can be verified with enough certainty.
Saying the valley died because of climate change cannot be verified without more corroborating evidence and thus on its own, that affirmation is anecdotal.
Funding research is giving money out? Hmm... Not sure if intelligent.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
You maybe attuned to English; however, you are an ineffective communicator because you're unable to choose le mot juste. It's not as though a better choice of word was unavailable. You just couldn't think of it, and now you're trying to justify your poor choice through discussion of normative and descriptive linguistics.
Sure, but today, or in a million years? Nature gave us that ingenuity, and like any creature, we use what we have. If the human experiment has run its course and we've reached the limit our survival skills, so be it. But if we can survive, invent space travel, mine the asteroid belt for resources, educate every child to great intelligence, and let Earth return back to a big garden, great. If we can't, we can't.