In a slew of recent events, Bill Gates has continued his vocal support for significantly increasing federal investment in energy research and development. At a climate change meeting this morning in Seattle, Gates said that the government isn't doing nearly enough to invest in energy R&D, and should more than double its current commitment. He singled out the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Energy (ARPA-E) for praise, but noted that it's too small and that it's funding was almost cut in recent budget negotiations.
Gates also stressed the difference between the energy and IT sectors, and why federal investment in energy R&D is so critical:
"The decisions you make now are based on some prediction about government policy way out there, decades in the future...Those kinds of things are so risky that there's a tendency to underinvest. When it comes to software and chips, the life cycles are two to three years, you understand who wants to buy them, and it's not subject to all this regulation."
Last week, Gates spoke at the Wired Business Conference in New York, where he noted that the need for radical innovation in energy technologies necessitates a shift in emphasis away from deployment of existing technologies and toward research and early commercialization of innovative ones. Any solution, Gates said, needs to be big, noting that rooftop solar PV will have a smaller impact than utility-scale solar:
"If you are going for cuteness, go after the those things at the home. If you want to solve the energy problem go after the big things in the desert."
Last year Gates, along with other business leaders, created the American Energy Innovation Council to lobby the government to increase federal energy R&D investment to at least $16 billion annually.
