This is from a man with a 66,000 sq. ft. home — that’s about 1.65 acres of living space.
Bill Gates writes in Science:
… I believe it is imperative that the government commit to clean energy innovation at a level similar to its research investments in health and defense…
Market incentives, alone, will not create enough affordable, clean energy to get the nation to near-zero CO2 emissions, the level of emissions that developed countries must achieve if we are going to keep Earth from getting even hotter…
Last year, I joined with other business leaders in a call to increase federal investment in energy R&D from $5 billion to $16 billion a year.† (Others, including the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, have also recommended substantial increases.‡) Recently, our group, the American Energy Innovation Council (AEIC), issued a second report outlining ways to ensure that government research dollars are targeted wisely to achieve optimal returns. The report also suggests ways to pay for the increased investment: reducing or eliminating current subsidies to well-established energy industries, diverting a portion of royalties from domestic energy production, collecting a small fee on electricity sales, or imposing a price on carbon…
This issue is my own personal pet-peeve. Bill is right about spending money on research. If we want to dicover a new or better energy source we need to research it, but he is just being an idiot to tie it with CO2. But every dollar we have spent to subsidise wind and solar, is the exact opposite of creating a “green” energy future. By using taxpayer money to make unprofitable old-tech profitable, they are guaranteeing that nothing new will be discovered. Take the 100’s of billions they have spent subsidising windmills, solar and ethanol and you would have had a huge research fund to discover something new. How is spending all your money on ineffecient old tech, making a “green” future? We would do well to research new energy sources now while we have cheap energy to subsidise that research. But lets not be idiots and pretend its because of some mythical evil like CO2.
Odd. I’m sure Bill G. can fund $5B of research all by himself (and he would if there was hint of profit at the end).
It is amazing how one can be among the richest in the world and tell the government how much money to confiscate from the rest of us to satisfy that person’s agenda. I guess that old saying; “he who has the gold, makes the rules” applys.
Bill never was the brains of the operation, just the one without scruples.
Bill gates is one of the largest stockholders of one of the world’s largest waste management companies
http://www.billionairechronicles.net/what-can-a-billionaire-buy/like-tony-soprano-bill-gates-invests-in-trash
Bill needs to finish his undergraduate work first. Money is NOT an education.