Bill Gates Announces A New $1 Billion Clean Energy Fund (fortune.com)

And "he's got several billionaire pals on board." An anonymous reader quotes Fortune: Nearly two dozen of the world's most successful business leaders, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists will invest up to $1 billion in a fund led by Microsoft-co-founder Bill Gates that aims to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to almost zero by financing emerging clean energy technology. The Breakthrough Energy Ventures Fund includes John Doerr, chairman of venture firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, Khosla Ventures founder Vinod Khosla, former energy hedge fund manager John Arnold, Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos, and SAP co-founder Hasso Plattner...

The new fund, which will have a 20-year lifespan, is designed to be both broad and scientific -- two seemingly contradictory focuses -- in its investment approach. The fund will not be confined to a specific segment of the investment pipeline, which means it will put money into startups at the earliest of stages all the way to companies that have reached commercialization.
Gates said Sunday that "Our goal is to build companies that will help deliver the next generation of reliable, affordable, and emissions-free energy to the world."

Comments

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Er?

Surely the salient differences are

- Gates isn't in government
- he didn't run for election on the basis of 'draining the swamp' of corruption
- he didn't run for election on the basis of representing individuals against globalists

Do you even know for sure that Gates is a liberal?

I guarantee

[Anonymous Coward]

By the year 2050 we will still be running coal, natural gas, and oil fired power plants. Fossil fuel generation will still be greater than 50% of all electric generation.

We may be forced into electric cars, or hybrids, but they won't be replacing power generation with zero emissions technology that quickly.

Re:I guarantee

[Anonymous Coward]

By the year 2050 we will still be running coal, natural gas, and oil fired power plants. Fossil fuel generation will still be greater than 50% of all electric generation.

You think?

Why just this morning, I watched an oil report on Bloomberg TV about the natural declines in oi production in many countries. And there was that huge discovery in Texas last month.

And consider that even though it wasn't a regulatory requirement, many power plants switched to Natural Gas - cheap Natural Gas is what is kill coal: not the EPA as some Republicans insist.

Here's my predication: as oil supplies dwindle, its cost will go up. As "green" technology improves, its costs will go down.

At one point - soon (thanks China!*) green energy will be cheaper than fossil fuels.

.

*China is going crazy with green energy investment. They are developing it and the manufacturing capability for it. And while we round eyes are arguing about whether global warming is real or now, they are doing something about it and we will be dependent on them for solar panels and other "green" energy in the future because we are short sighted and stupid.

Re:I guarantee

[silentcoder]

And you base this on what exactly ? Blind faith ?
Considering that for every power plant you could build with fossil fuels a renewable plant will cost less and be done in 2 years rather than 15, and deliver cheaper electricity - that seems unlikely. And those numbers are *right now* - we can expect the price of renewables to drop and keep dropping, there is almost no chance of fossil fuel generators getting cheaper.

Sheer political malfeasance could achieve that outcome - but nothing else could.

Only an insane person (or a politician who took a very big bribe) would replace an aging fossil plant with a new fossil plant today. It makes no economic sense.

Re:I guarantee

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't heard about natural gas. Gas fired plants are being built hand over fist.

Re:I guarantee

[gtall]

I think it depends on how much land rising sea levels reclaim. All hail Poseidon.

Re:I guarantee

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you haven't heard about natural gas. Gas fired plants are being built hand over fist.

This is why Slashdot moderation sucks. The above post is a very good rebuttal of the parent. Maybe should have included a citation like this. Yet as of now it languishes at -1 moderation while the pseudo-intellectual parent gets +5.

As for how much capital it takes to build a plant and the required lead time, go read the pdf available from here. Reading the table seems sure doesn't seem to corroborate the facts silentcoder promotes.

Re:I guarantee

[FeelGood314]

Sure for KWh pricing renewables are doing very well but they still suck in the reliability department. Solar in Germany generates exactly 0% of Germany's peak power demand. (Germany's peak is in the winter after 18:00, when the sun has set). Wind provides the most energy to the grid in Ontario, Pennsylvania and Ohio in the late evening in January and February, when our demand is lowest. This frequently causes the price of electricity to go negative. Coal maybe on the way out but natural gas energy production will remain very profitable and actually get more profitable as we shut down our base load production of coal and nuclear.

And batteries are just not good enough yet. Summer retail prices in some places in North America swing by $0.70 per KWh but even at that swing you can't build a battery that will last enough charge/discharge cycles to pay for itself.

Re: I guarantee

[WindBourne]

And yet, America has in 8 short years gone from 65-72% fossil fuel with 55% coal and then 10-18% Nat gas, to around 55% fossil fuel, with around 23-25% coal and 30-32% Nat gas. And if trump allows exports of oil and Nat gas, both will jump in price here. Combined with nuke SMR and wind/solar going lower in costs, fossil fuel will continue to disappear in America.

Re:I guarantee

[MobyDisk]

With today's energy storage technology, for every watt of solar or wind power we build, we must also have a watt of fossil-fuel power built as well. This is because those renewable sources aren't guaranteed 24/7. Nuclear doesn't work here because it is too slow to throttle up and down. So if you make a 1.21 gigawatt solar plant, you need a 1.21 gigawatt gas-fired plant as well.

We need to invest in new energy storage technologies before the solar/wind payoff can completely replaced fossil fuels. The renewable sources are only cheaper if we:
* Include the subsidies
* Don't include the cost of the fossil-fuel plant that is operating as the backup
* Assume the power generator is near to the power consumer

Hopefully, time and technology will address these concerns.

Re:I guarantee

[Rob Y.]

The EPA probably did have something to do with killing coal. Oh, sure, it took cheap natural gas to drive the last nail into the coffin, but you pretty much can't build new coal plants in this country - and existing ones have simply been expanding - for decades - based on an emmissions loophole for grandfathered plants.

But the death of coal is a good thing. Coal is the dirtiest fuel around. Mining employs way fewer workers than it used to - and destroys the environment way more than it used to. And yes, there are more potential jobs building wind and solar farms than mining coal. Hillary Clinton - inartful as always - tried to make these points, but got sound-bited down to 'coal is dead'. And now Trump's fossil fuel brigade will attempt to reverse the progress on renewables, but they're coming anyway. At some point there will be a revolution in battery (or some other storage) technology that will change everything.

Re:I guarantee

[silentcoder]

And the guys investing a billion dollars in the tech isn't exactly what you just proclaimed to be what's needed?

Re:I guarantee

[Agripa]

Here's my predication: as oil supplies dwindle, its cost will go up. As "green" technology improves, its costs will go down.

And during the whole process, politicians will use rent seeking to take from the poor and give to the rich.

Re:I guarantee

[MobyDisk]

I am confused why would you say that. Gates investment is exactly the kind of funding that is needed.

Re:I guarantee

[silentcoder]

That's what I said.

ALREADY HAVE IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Nucular from the '50's' works as good today and tomorrow as it always have. Trust me. I know. I am a nucular enginer in charged of safeney.

Re:ALREADY HAVE IT!

[mrvan]

Nucular from the '50's' works as good today and tomorrow as it always have. Trust me. I know. I am a nucular enginer in charged of safeney.

I can see "nucular" as being sort of witty (or at least a cheap dig at the previous POTUS), but I would hope that an "enginer in charged of safeney" could pay a little bit more attention to detail...

Re: ALREADY HAVE IT!

[WindBourne]

An AC that is that stupid? The only.thing nuclear he saw was his dad looking at his grades.

Joint action..

[fbobraga]

... with google: https://hardware.slashdot.org/... ?

Re:fake news

[dehachel12]

>a significant amount of total emissions.
can you show us the data?

Re:Typo

[fbobraga]

editor mean Nest Labs, I think...

Re:Deja vu

[Freischutz]

Er?

Surely the salient differences are

- Gates isn't in government - he didn't run for election on the basis of 'draining the swamp' of corruption - he didn't run for election on the basis of representing individuals against globalists

Do you even know for sure that Gates is a liberal?

I don't care if Gates is liberal or conservative, he seems to be sane and rational on a bunch of stuff ranging from Pandemics like Malaria to clean energy and climate change so I applaud his efforts.

Concrete and Steel

[ThosLives]

We will never reach zero CO2 emissions.

Maybe we can reach zero net emissions through sequestration, but as long as we build with reasonable structural materials, we will not have zero emissions. I'm still not sure zero net emissions is quite the same thing as zero emissions either.

Also, it does take a whopping amount of energy to sequester emissions, so it's an interesting economic exercise to consider the energy investment of sequestration versus the cost of dealing with climate change. It's one of those things where people see the concentrated costs of war or relocation or whatever, but not the diffuse costs of say a 5% increase in cost of all steel and concrete everywhere. (Some ballpark numbers: 2016 world steel market was about 1500 million tons, at a price of something like $300 a ton. So a 5% increase would be about $22.5 billion a year.(And that's assuming it only costs 5% to sequester the carbon emitted from making steel.)

Re:Concrete and Steel

[silentcoder]

You may be right - but it is not relevant to the story at all even if you are since the story is about this particular investment fund which is solely focused on emissions from energy generation. There is no reason we can't have zero emissions in that (much narrower) subfield of human activity.

Which is however such a massive part of total emissions that achieving their goal would likely put us back within the levels of emission that nature can absorb and adapt to with minimal impact on us.

And your mistake is to look at the economic costs in isolation while ignoring the cost in human lives. Just last month a massive avalanche killed loads of innocent people - and that one has been fairly conclusively linked to climate change. Such events will only get more common as glaciers melt.

Re:Concrete and Steel

[Hodr]

Just last month a massive avalanche killed loads of innocent people - and that one has been fairly conclusively linked to climate change. Such events will only get more common as glaciers melt.

Patently false. Once the glaciers have melted and there is no more snow accumulation, avalanche frequency will severely decrease.

Re:Deja vu

[silentcoder]

Oh Trump drained a swamp allright. Then he took all the aligators that used to live in that swamp and put them in his cabinet.

Carrots are usually better than a stick.

[dlb101010]

Bill Gates, et. al, have the approach to the problem that's more likely to succeed.

Carbon credits have the workable idea of making it profitable to lessen production of green-house gases, but it attempts this by creating artificial incentives to control the actions of businesses. Such heavy-handed interference is almost always short-term and rife with the usual faults politically mandated solutions bring to the table.

On the other hand, if using clean energy can be made to actually be significantly cheaper and more convenient, then the solution to "dirty" energy will be quickly enacted all on its own. No government intervention needed.

Re:Carrots are usually better than a stick.

[silentcoder]

> if using clean energy can be made to actually be significantly cheaper and more convenient

Done and dusted then. Clean energy is already significantly cheaper than fossil energy (solar to coal difference is massive already: solar plant costs per kilowhat hour is now roughly half of what it is for fossil plants), and convenience ? It takes 5 to 7 years to bring a coal plant online, and that's assuming everything happens on schedule - 15 years in practice is not unheard off (and nuclear STARTS there).
A typical solar plant of the same capacity takes 2 years to build, and they are almost always on time, require less manpower to maintain and have fewer outages and far fewer safety concerns at every level.

And that's without even considering the hidden costs like the healthcare for all the millions of people who get respiratory illnesses when you build a coal plant in their town.

The trouble is there is ALREADY massive and heavy-handed government intervention: in favour of fossil fuels. Intervention which has proven to be politically almost impossible to be remove since the 'party of small government' and it's ilk around the world abandon all their rhetoric when it comes to defending the donors in that industry from upstart competitors who are cheaper, more reliable and cleaner. The market isn't free and doesn't operate like a free market - so your claims about what a free market would do has no relevance to any discussion about the energy market.
Now since we can't get rid of the political influence on one side, the best we can try to achieve is to gain equal or greater political influence on the OTHER side so the two can cancel each other out.
Arguably there are good reasons the market isn't free. Fossil fuel production requires massive capital investment with a very low per-unit profit margin, and any economist will tell you that is the definition of a natural monopoly. They always have local monopolies because a market CANNOT exist between them - it's mathematically impossible.
So, it's quite sound economics, when you are facing a natural monopoly industry to actually get government involved - since there is going to be a monopoly anyway, you can make it official and extract some good concessions to mitigate the worst effects of that monopoly from consumers.

The problem happens when eventually new technology arrives which changes the numbers. Fossil fuels are not natural monopolies, they can be done on smaller scales, different types can coexist and compete - the initial investment is relatively low.
Suddenly there is the possibility of a market that didn't exist for the previous 120 years. But the things done during that 120 years, are proving harder to undo than would be ideal.

Re:Carrots are usually better than a stick.

[mlts]

I like the idea of nuclear plants for a core source... but the beauty of solar is its innate idiot resistance. Pretty much, panels are put on assemblies, the panels are wired to inverters, inverters are wired to the grid... done. For offline panels, add a battery bank, charger, and inverter. Yes, one can add things like multi axis trackers, but there isn't much that solar panels really need, except perhaps blowing the snow off of them in winter. Upkeep costs are very minimal because there are no moving parts (assuming a fixed axis system.) Contrast this to most other energy generation methods which require periodic upkeep due to parts wearing out.

Because solar is so easy to put up almost anywhere, it becomes a "why not?" item, especially because it provides so many benefits. Almost all new RVs are being sold with 100+ watts of panels on them, just because they are a passive way to keep the batteries charged. Developments like Tesla's solar roof will only make it more common to have solar panels of some form being the status quo on buildings.

Re:Carrots are usually better than a stick.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please cite facts on solar energy vs. coal vs. CCNG vs. Wind

I was an energy analyst up until less than a year ago and the subsidized cost per MWh of energy is ordered as follows: Coal (cheapest), CCNG, Wind, Solar (most expensive).

Coal is actually anti-subsidized. Plants are being shut down not because the cost of energy is higher but because the costs of regulatory compliance is too high. The power company would have to add wind / solar to the feet to meet carbon regulations so instead they shutter the coal plant and build a CCNG plant.

I am not sure what subsidies you think coal gets but Wind and Solar get 30% federal investment tax credits, meaning for every $1.00 spent they developer only has to pay $0.70 cents to build the thing, the government indirectly pays the other $0.30. Given that the government's 30 cents acts as equity, you can add debt to a project and thus the developer may only have to kick in 10% or even no money to build a renewable project. Literally just government equity and bank debt.

It is expected that solar will beat out fossil fuels within 10 years but we are not there yet and I am not sure we will be there in 20 years. Solar and Wind are not "on demand" generators (you can't turn them on at will) of electricity and thus "grid costs" must also be considered. "Grid costs" include 1) need to provide significantly more over capacity 4x - 6x may be required vs. a demand generator (to deal with night, winter, consecutive cloudy days, lost efficiency for storing energy vs. using immediately, etc.) 2) Need for energy storage facilities 3) Need for smart grid upgrades and much greater grid management expense 4) Need to build entire new transmission infrastructure to accommodate dispersed nature of generation + storage sites.

You can add solar to our current grid fine but get above 10 - 20% and you have real challenges. Go 100% renewable and you will literally need to provide 6x the "rated capacity" (sunny summer day) to make up for cloudy winter days with long nights + build storage facilities on top of the 6x overcapacity. You may get 3-4 hours of good generation on a perfect winter day.

Re:Carrots are usually better than a stick.

[MattskEE]

Coal is actually anti-subsidized.

The unpriced externalities of pollution and carbon emissions are effectively a coal subsidy we are all paying with our health and the future economic and environmental consequences of climate change.

And it is true that you cannot go 100% solar+wind without storage, but the technology is here today. It's not a matter of waiting 10 or 20 years for technology to magically improve, it will improve a bit over that time period but probably nothing dramatic. There is nothing terribly confusing either about how to upgrade the grid for renewables, in some cases transmission infrastructure will need to be updated, though in many cases it will not. Some new standards and models will need to be developed and implemented for grid management, incorporating weather predictions to predict daily output of the renewables mix, but people are already working on these and it won't be required until renewables are present in a much high percentage than they are today.

Re:Carrots are usually better than a stick.

[MobyDisk]

Rather than repeat myself: same point, made elsewhere in this story:
https://hardware.slashdot.org/...

In-short: solar and wind aren't cheaper... yet.

Re:Carrots are usually better than a stick.

[Namarrgon]

Please cite facts on solar energy vs. coal vs. CCNG vs. Wind

Sure. See Table 1b in this EIA report. To summarise:

Geothermal: 45.0
Advanced Gas CC: 57.2
Wind: 64.5
Hydroelectric: 67.8
Solar PV: 84.7
Advanced Gas CC with CCS: 84.8
Biomass: 96.1
Advanced Nuclear: 102.8
Advanced Coal with CCS: 139.5
Wind (Offshore): 158.1
Solar Thermal: 235.9

Total levelised cost values in 2015 dollars per MWh, not including tax credits.

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, we can't read your mind, so how about giving us an example?

Because the most relevant example I can think of is Gates' push to eliminate Polio, of which you, myself, and everyone else are *included* in that "special" group. Literally the entire planet is included in that group.

In other news....

[Mashiki]

People living under "green energy" recoil in horror as energy prices go through the roof due to FiT programs. Progressives continue to wonder why all those people don't vote for them and, tell their friends that they know what's best for everyone.

Re:In other news....

[Mashiki]

Sure. Let's see how many recoil in horror when oil price will get back to previous 2014 levels.

That moment when you realize electricity was cheaper in 2008 before green energy programs started to really kick in, and the price has increased from 0.07kWh to 0.18kWh in less then a decade and oil prices had no impact on it. And was still almost 0.5kWh cheaper in 2014 then today.

Re:In other news....

[Anonymous Coward]

Fossil fuel power stations do not have to pay for the shit they pump into the air, rivers and sea, so they're already being subsidised by the national health problems they cause down the road. Tell them to clean up their shit first, and then let's compare costs.

Re:In other news....

[AmiMoJo]

Then it hits you: Electricity was never $0.07/kWh, it's just that someone else was paying part of your bill!

Re:In other news....

[Mashiki]

Then it hits you: Electricity was never $0.07/kWh, it's just that someone else was paying part of your bill!

Then it hits you: You have no idea on what you're talking about. Electricity has never been subsidized in Ontario, because Ontario has always been a NET producer and NET exporter. Damn those facts huh?

Re:In other news....

[Mashiki]

Fossil fuel power stations do not have to pay for the shit they pump into the air, rivers and sea, so they're already being subsidised by the national health problems they cause down the road. Tell them to clean up their shit first, and then let's compare costs.

Bzzt. Costs area already included in Canada, there is a mandatory fund that all power producers and industries must pay into to cover any form of cleanup costs. I know, it hurts that green energy myth that you're pushing that fossil power stations do not have to clean up stuff. But be less ignorant.

Dark-Horse Fusion

[seven of five]

I'd love to see this go to any or all of the dozen or so dark-horse fusion efforts: polywell, general fusion, tri-alpha, lockheed-martin, etc.

This is good except for one thing.

[Last_Available_Usern]

This is a great initiative and I applaud Bill Gates and the rest for spearheading this, but I can't help but feel like this is giving government and industry and an easy way out of doing what they should have been doing themselves already.

Re:This is good except for one thing.

[Jeremi]

This is a great initiative and I applaud Bill Gates and the rest for spearheading this, but I can't help but feel like this is giving government and industry and an easy way out of doing what they should have been doing themselves already.

Well, probably -- but it doesn't seem likely that they were going to do the right thing anyway.

If you can imagine The Donald reading this article and saying "Great! Thanks to Bill Gates, I'm now off the hook and no longer have to worry about climate change", you've got a better imagination than I do. He was already off the hook, by virtue of Not Giving a F*ck.

Pick 2 out of 3...

[bobbied]

You can have energy sources that are:

1. Reliable

2. Affordable

3. Environmentally friendly...

Just like you can choose hardware that is:

1. Reliable

2. Affordable

3. High Performance

The problem here is that you can only pick two out of three...

Re:Pick 2 out of 3...

[AmiMoJo]

Give it a little time. Wind is already cheaper than most other forms of energy, and add in some batteries and it becomes super reliable too.

Re:Pick 2 out of 3...

[MobyDisk]

Unfortunately once you add in the batteries, they are no longer cheaper. We need some research to address this. Flywheels? Some kind of more efficient water storage?

Re:Pick 2 out of 3...

[Jeremi]

Would it be terribly inconsiderate of me to point out that by the standards of even a decade ago, my home computer is very reliable, very affordable, and extremely high performance?

There's no reason energy sources can't eventually check all of the boxes either; it's just a matter of time and effort to get there.

Re:Pick 2 out of 3...

[bobbied]

Not inconsiderate at all...

But still, you pick two in terms of what's available today. It's always been this way and will always be. I dare say your home computer is cheap and reliable like mine, but it's nowhere near the peak performance available today. In fact, I'm willing to bet that even the best performing PC system you could build from off the shelf parts today still is a far cry cheaper than a "high performance" system of the same reliability currently available... You always get two of the three... Think about it....

Re:Pick 2 out of 3...

[blindseer]

Don't you think that batteries would help out other forms of energy too?

A big problem with coal, nuclear, or any other energy that relies on boiling water is that it does not load follow well. The way this is dealt with now is with expensive and not very fuel efficient natural gas turbines. If there is a battery system that can store up the cheap boiling water energy and release it during peaks then the boiling water energy starts to look cheaper, cleaner, and more reliable.

I do not believe that grid scale batteries will make wind and solar look better, I believe it will make them look worse. Feel free to disagree with me but I'd like to see someone actually do the math on this. My own "back of the envelope" math does not show batteries particularly helpful for making wind power affordable, reliable, and still green. Especially the "green" part of the equation. Just think about how much mining would have to be done for the materials to store enough energy to replace coal and nuclear with wind and solar.

We'd be much better off with nuclear power, even if we had a viable grid scale battery technology.

Re:Pick 2 out of 3...

[Jeremi]

True, but irrelevant, since the level of computing performance I realistically can make use of doesn't grow significantly from one year to the next. Once computers became "fast enough", (let's say, around 2010, software-bloat issues notwithstanding), they remain "fast enough", and the fact that people with greater needs (or enthusiasm) still have the option of paying more to get additional computing power doesn't effect me one way or the other.

Re:Pick 2 out of 3...

[bobbied]

You must not run Windows or the more recent games... In my experience with computers (which is considerable at this point), starting with old thumb switched program boot loaders and magnetic drum drive through modern super computers, I can tell you that as processing power increases, so does the processing power required by the applications we run.

So, yea, my smart phone could likely do the whole of Bletchley Park breaking of the German's enigma machine in a few seconds a day, but it wasn't available, and wouldn't be available for nearly 6 decades at any cost. Same with that PC on your desk....

As AMD and Intel build faster processors, Microsoft fills them with boat, wiz bang graphics, animated cursers and Office which has boated beyond my wildest dreams when I first used Word Perfect and Lotus... Now, we have USB 3 which wouldn't be possible with your common 286 because it couldn't possibly service the interrupts fast enough to handle even a legacy USB 2.0 device...

So, I'm not disagreeing with you, I'm only pointing out that the "state of the art" in speed in a reasonably reliable system doesn't come cheap, nor does rock solid reliability at mill spec temperatures or radiation levels, that's expensive too. What you actually have with that PC of yours is a cheap, non-reliable and less than state of the art performance computer that suits your needs. It is not exceptional in any way... It's just a common computer of the day.

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

I was thinking this might be a slightly interesting and valid point until you blew it with the climate change denial tripe. You've fallen victim to the very laziness you're alluding to in the previous commenter. Climate change is real, it's well documented and it's completely undeniable. The extent to which it is man-made is also very much unclear but there's undeniable evidence we're partially to blame and even if we're not, that doesn't make it any less of an issue. Yes, it's true if you avoid researching the subject properly it is possible to come to other conclusions but only in the same way that the catholic church assured people the world was flat. Due to laziness and a lack of correct information, the earth is flat belief stuck around for a fairly long time but I'm rather hoping the climate change isn't happening rubbish will be accepted as such is rather less time.

Re: Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to look up the definition of penultimate.

Re:Deja vu

[mean pun]

We haven't even touched upon the whole climate change thing yet and trust me, you will be floored when you see the big picture.

You don't fully understand that clickbait spiel yet. Yes, you have to say 'you will be floored', 'you will be astonished', 'will surprise you' or something like that, but then you have to proved a link.

Astonishing, I know, but keep trying, you'll get there.

LFTR Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

[Brian Stretch]

I hope they throw some money towards developing LFTRs. If you have a couple of hours this Thorium Remix 2016 documentary is AMAZING.

Re:LFTR Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

[AmiMoJo]

The whole fund is only $1bn, a small fraction of what is needed to get LFTR off the ground. Maybe if someone came up with a way to dramatically cut the cost it might be worth investing in.

Re:LFTR Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

[blindseer]

Maybe if someone came up with a way to dramatically cut the cost it might be worth investing in.

You mean like how if we could figure out how to make wind cheaper it might be worth investing in? I thought the investment in wind was to figure out how to make it cheaper. Along the same lines we should be investing in LFTR to find a way to make it cheaper.

Also, if you ask any nuclear engineer about what makes a nuclear reactor so expensive they will tell you it's the government fees and licensing costs. No technology development will fix that, those costs are a political problem. We can fix those at any time, and it doesn't take billions of dollars of R&D to do.

Re:LFTR Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor

[AmiMoJo]

That's what I mean. Propose something that will make LFTR cheaper and maybe it will be worth funding, but just throwing money at developing the technology into something that can work at commercial scale is a waste of time, especially if you only have $1bn.

If by "government fees" you mean "priceless insurance", then yes, I guess those are quite expensive. Literally priceless, in fact. How do you propose making licencing fees go away, just ignore the patents?

Re:Like

[leptons]

Wrong! You're talking about the president-elect.

Re: Deja vu

[WindBourne]

Wow. Have you been bamboozled. For malaria, he wanted at one time to wipe out ALL mosquitos on the planet. Yet, it us becoming more evident that mosquitos and virus play one of the most crucial roles for evolution. Likewise, he wanted to stop hurricanes in the gulf so as to minimize the damage. Basically, he was going to ignore that hurricanes dredge up nutrients from deep down and likewise send other goodies down below. And then his approach to nukes us a foolish mistake.

Re:fake news

[Stephan Schulz]

The greatest green house gas is water vapor.

And yet water vapour is in short-term dynamic equilibrium in the atmosphere - excess is removed via precipitation, and shortage is made up via evaporation from the ground or the oceans. Thus relative humidity is self-regulating to be essentially constant. But with rising temperatures (due to e.g. increased CO2) the absolute humidity and hence the greenhouse effect is increasing. Water vapour is one of the best-known positive climate feedbacks, but, unlike long-living greenhouse gases like CO2, it is not a climate forcing.

Re:Deja vu

[TheRaven64]

Eliminating diseases is laudable. But what do you do when you're the President of a poor nation in the middle of an epidemic and a non-profit with a seemingly bottomless budget comes along and says 'we'll buy you enough vaccine for your entire population, but the companies that produce it won't let us send it to you unless you sign a treaty with the USA that protects US patents in your country'. Most of the time, you sign, because even though the treaty will harm your economy and increase your dependence on foreign aid and make it harder for local businesses to succeed, the alternative is to stand up in front of your people and explain why you're willing to let them die.

The B&MGF has a history of doing this. Coincidentally, the portfolios of the Foundation's biggest backers have benefitted considerably from this spread of US IP laws.

Re: fake news

[WindBourne]

Yeah? So what? It is not the most intense, just the largest volume. And as global temps increase, we will see more water in.the air.

Re:Deja vu

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah a clown car of swamp monsters

Re: Deja vu

[Type44Q]

Quite the penis expert, huh.

Re:Deja vu

[penandpaper]

Unless you re-interpret 'drain swamp' as in 'get Democrats out' then Mission Accomplished with banner and all. Err, soon to be Mission Accomplished. I guess that banner will never get its day in the sun when the sun actually shines. We may have to pull an Old-Yeller on that banner if the EC votes in someone else. Poor thing can't handle all these missions accomplished without accomplishing anything.

*Note, I know what Trump said and what he meant by 'drain the swamp'.

So a gallery of rogues.

[sethstorm]

At least they did the easy work of identifying who is against the US.

Re:Deja vu

[FatdogHaiku]

...he seems to be sane and rational...

OK, you can't be like that and hold high office!

Nice talk but...

[BeerMilkshake]

Three cheers for Mr. Gates and some others for taking some action, but it seems like marketing and self-protection. Quoting http://www.b-t.energy/unsolici... [www.b-t.energy]

"Breakthrough Energy Coalition (BEC) and Breakthrough Energy Ventures (BEV) do not accept or consider unsolicited ideas, suggestions, information, or materials of any nature whatsoever (“submissions”) and we request that you don’t provide submissions to us. The purpose of this policy is to avoid misunderstandings and disputes when BEC’s and/or BEV’s products, services, technologies or business are similar or even identical to your submissions."

The lack of opportunity for the general public to work on environmental initiatives is disappointing. It would be great to see such leadership include a public engagement plan to make real projects happen first at small scale then up. The ideas, enthusiasm and effort must come from and benefit the average person.

To be fair to BEC/BEV, at least their club is doing something. It seems the public is disorganized and government is dysfunctional, preferring instead to argue over building big walls and making war.

Re: Deja vu

[Jeremi]

Also, at one time, Bill Gates also thought Santa Claus was real. Who cares? What's important is whether he is having a beneficial effect now, or likely will in the future.

Broad/Scientific

[ColaMan]

"Broad and Scientific" are not contradictory poses.

Broad - accept any solution that might be out there.
Scientific - thoroughly research said solutions for suitability with regards to many factors.

Perhaps Forbes was thinking of "Broad and Specific", which would indeed be somewhat contradictory.

Best and most effective way to reduce energy use

[rcharbon]

And cheap too: have fewer people.