Business giants launch clean energy initiative
The Breakthrough Energy Coalition, unveiled during the UN’s climate talks in Paris this week, will primarily put money into early-stage companies aiming to produce near zero-carbon emissions, while also spreading investments across a number of sectors including electricity, transport, industry and energy system efficiency.
The coalition will target the development of novel technologies and innovations to current forms of renewable energy, with the high-profile investors working closely with leading public and private institutions in order to “guide investment decision-making.”
Reid Hoffman and Jeff Bezos, founders of Linked In and Amazon, respectively, will work with Microsoft founder Gates, Facebook CEO Zuckerburg and Virgin owner Branson as part of the coalition, which is formed of investors from nine countries, spanning four continents.
The new initiative has been launched in conjunction with Mission Innovation, an agreement from 21 countries, including the US and Britain, to double the amount of public money going into clean energy innovation, with its first meeting set to take place early next year.
Gates cited the fact that the world is set to be using 50% more energy by 2050, stating that much of this energy will be gained from coal and oil.
“The renewable technologies we have today, like wind and solar, have made a lot of progress and could be one path to a zero-carbon energy future,” he said. “But given the scale of the challenge, we need to be exploring many different paths and that means we also need to invent new approaches.
“Private companies will ultimately develop these energy breakthroughs, but their work will rely on the kind of basic research that only governments can fund. Both have a role to play.”
US President Barack Obama believes that the additional resources provided by the coalition will dramatically expand technologies that are set to play a big part in the future energy mix.
“The truth is, if we adapt existing technologies and make them cheaper and faster and more readily available– if we improve energy efficiency–we’re still only going to get part of the way there and there’s still going to be a big gap to fill,” he said.
“That’s where these research dollars become so important, because we don’t yet know exactly what’s going to work best.”
