Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Entrepreneur Bill Gates has announced a one billion dollar green tech fund, to try to make renewables fit for purpose.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald;
If successful, the Paris meeting could spur a fundamental shift away from the use of oil, coal and gas to the use of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power. But that transition would require major breakthroughs in technology and huge infrastructure investments by governments and industry.
Where that money would come from has been a question leading up to the Paris talks. Developing countries like India, the third-largest fossil-fuel polluter, have pushed for commitments by developed nations to pay for their energy transition, either through direct government spending or through inexpensive access to new technology.
India has emerged as a pivotal player in the Paris talks. The announcement by Mr Gates appears intended to help secure India’s support of a deal.
As US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton pledged that developed countries would send $US100 billion ($139 billion) annually to poor countries by 2020 to help them pay for the energy transition. Indian officials have demanded that the Paris deal lock in language that the money would come from public funds — a dealbreaker for rich countries.
This summer, Mr Gates pledged to spend $US 1 billion of his personal fortune on researching and deploying clean energy technology, but the people with knowledge of his plans said the new fund would include larger commitments.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/business/world-business/microsofts-bill-gates-to-start-multibilliondollar-fund-for-clean-energy-20151128-glacw0.html
This isn’t the first time a project to make renewables viable has been attempted. Back in 2014, WUWT reported about a similar attempt led by Google, which was a total failure.
At the start of RE<C, we had shared the attitude of many stalwart environmentalists: We felt that with steady improvements to today’s renewable energy technologies, our society could stave off catastrophic climate change. We now know that to be a false hope … Renewable energy technologies simply won’t work; we need a fundamentally different approach.”
Read more: http://spectrum.ieee.org/energy/renewables/what-it-would-really-take-to-reverse-climate-change
I applaud Bill’s enthusiasm – who wouldn’t want cheap magic solar panels, which eliminated the need to ever pay another electricity bill. But if the Google experience is any guide, it seems unlikely that another billion dollars will make a significant difference.
I disagree with all this negativity.
Observations:
It’s Bill’s money and he is an intelligent man. He has correctly discovered that current green energy technologies are not green and produce little useful energy. (We wrote that in 2002.)
Technology is always improving and will find a way, in time, to make new forms of cheap abundant reliable energy, which is the lifeblood of modern society.
Objective:
The simple objective should be an energy generation system that competes with fossil fuels on a total cost basis – that is, it costs about 4-5 cent/KWh all-in, including OpEx and CapEx, long term and produces reliable abundant energy.
Secondary Objective:
To get off the grid, because grid costs can triple the total cost of household electrical power.
These are current costs here in southern Alberta.
In comparison, grid-connected wind power costs about 20 cents/KWh (4-5 times fossil fuels) and solar even more. Intermittence and lack of a “super-battery” makes grid-connected “green” power even more expensive and often utterly worthless – a liability instead of an asset, since it can destabilize the grid.
The big question is this – why does anyone demonize CO2 and fossil fuels? Atmospheric CO2 is the basis of all carbon-based life on Earth and atmospheric CO2 is not dangerously high, it is alarmingly low. That is the harsh reality that so many people are ignoring.
One of the next Ice Ages will be an extinction event for all carbon-based life on Earth, as terrestrial photosynthesis shuts down when atmospheric CO2 drops below about 150ppm. This is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but with a whimper.
More CO2 in the atmosphere is good – a lot more CO2 is even better. CO2 abatement and sequestration schemes are utter nonsense.
All carbon -based life on Earth relies entirely on abundant atmospheric CO2.
Regards to all, Allan
.
If the problem were CO2…you ‘may’ have had a point….The problem is our geopolitical environmen and its desecration of the sciences. It’s not about the health or continuance of humanity, it’s about obtaining complete and utter control over the masses. Just like, Genghis Khan, Alexander the Great, and all of those mass manipulative dipshits.
Hey dog – easy now, down boy! 🙂
You may have a valid point but all I can do to oppose these warmist “manipulative dipshits” and their “desecration of the sciences” is to point out that they have the science completely wrong, I believe that over time the public is gradually accepting our honest position, starting with the most intelligent people and then moving down the food chain.
I am much more gentle than you in my terminology, respectfully referring to these alleged scientists and their supporters as “scoundrels and imbeciles”. One does not want to overstate one’s case or be too pejorative.
Here are some previous comments on CO2 starvation on Earth:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/03/14/matt-ridley-fossil-fuels-will-save-the-world-really/#comment-1883937
I have no time to run the numbers, but I do not think we have millions of years left for carbon-based life on Earth.
Over time, CO2 is ~permanently sequestered in carbonate rocks, so concentrations get lower and lower. During an Ice Age, atmospheric CO2 concentrations drop to very low levels due to solution in cold oceans, etc. Below a certain atmospheric CO2 concentration, terrestrial photosynthesis slows and shuts down. I suppose life in the oceans can carry on but terrestrial life is done.
So when will this happen – in the next Ice Age a few thousands years hence, or the one after that ~100,000 years later, or the one after that?
In geologic time, we are talking the blink of an eye before terrestrial life on Earth ceases due to CO2 starvation.
________________________
I wrote the following on this subject, posted on Icecap.us:
On Climate Science, Global Cooling, Ice Ages and Geo-Engineering:
[excerpt]
Furthermore, increased atmospheric CO2 from whatever cause is clearly beneficial to humanity and the environment. Earth’s atmosphere is clearly CO2 deficient and continues to decline over geological time. In fact, atmospheric CO2 at this time is too low, dangerously low for the longer term survival of carbon-based life on Earth.
More Ice Ages, which are inevitable unless geo-engineering can prevent them, will cause atmospheric CO2 concentrations on Earth to decline to the point where photosynthesis slows and ultimately ceases. This would devastate the descendants of most current [terrestrial] life on Earth, which is carbon-based and to which, I suggest, we have a significant moral obligation.
Atmospheric and dissolved oceanic CO2 is the feedstock for all carbon-based life on Earth. More CO2 is better. Within reasonable limits, a lot more CO2 is a lot better.
As a devoted fan of carbon-based life on Earth, I feel it is my duty to advocate on our behalf. To be clear, I am not prejudiced against non-carbon-based life forms, but I really do not know any of them well enough to form an opinion. They could be very nice. 🙂
Best, Allan
http://www.au.af.mil/au/ssq/digital/pdf/spring_13/Kiefer_Long_Version.pdf
Why are we still splashing other people’s cash around, crashing about in the dark, searching blindly for an alternative source of cheap renewable energy – whilst other regions of the world are cracking ahead with deployment of large scale hydropower?
Hundred’s of billions spent on unproven technology, phony ideas and unending hype and we still have no source of renewable energy that comes near to competing with hydro. Nothing comes close. And the falling price of solar PV has nothing to do with subsidies. The trend in costs/watt predate the age of subsidies.
But as is often pointed out – even if solar PV was free, it doesn’t work for half the day.
So where is the result of the hundreds of billions in investment in innovation and subsidies?
Can anyone name one single innovative technology that has come close to competitive performance in the market? Has ALL the money gifted to innovators been completely wasted?
We’ve effectively been dishing out money to pay innovators to discover an alternative to hydro.
Something that will do what hydro does – provide dispatchable cheap renewable energy.
All that money seems to have been burned. Because they have totally failed.
Meanwhile, the Chinese are cracking on with massive deployment of hydro – both at home and abroad.
How much more money are we going to waste searching for something that has already been found?
Another billion will do nothing. Hundred’s of billions have already been tipped down the toilet and I can not see one useful innovation that this extravagance has bought.
http://atomicinsights.com/the-three-gorges-dam-why-china-is-run-by-engineers/
Looks like Gates has taken advice from the Rockefeller play book by donating to a foundation instead of paying taxes.
“Although Bill Gates might try to say that the Foundation is not linked to his business, all it proves is the opposite: most of their donations end up favoring the commercial investments of the tycoon, not really “donating” anything, but instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he invests his profits in where it is favorable to him economically, including propaganda from their supposed good intentions. On the contrary, their “donations” finance projects as destructive as geoengineering or replacement of natural community medicines for high-tech patented medicines in the poorest areas of the world. ” http://wariscrime.com/new/blackwater-monsanto-bill-gates-war-machines/
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/03/05/wikileaks-exposes-unholy-alliance-of-us-government-bill-gates-and-monsanto.aspx
What is the old saying, Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day; show him how to catch fish, and you feed him for a lifetime…..Never mind. Is it the 30th yet, still waiting for my government check to come in.
Bill Gates is now talking on green energy. This is to safeguard their profit interests, like all other MNCs such as Chemical input technologies, Genetically Modified seed technology, nuclear power technology, etc a bad policy.
To protect their income they are dumping everything on global warming – a safe goat.
To meet the greed of few MNCs, these technologies are destroying the natural resources and spreading pollution [air, water, soil & food]. This in turn is creating new diseases. To cure them bulk drug manufacturing industry polluting the environment and again creating more diseases. This is a vicious circle. So, we created pollution and that is leading to more energy consumption.
The IT sector is high energy intensive activity and also it is the area that is generating huge quantities of E-waste with every other day introducing new technologies by replacing the old – a high profit driven.
All these are concentrated to urban areas and urban areas increasing the energy consumption non-linearly going up and up over rural areas. Let us ask Gates, has he got any plan to bring down energy consumption in IT?
We are not identifying the problem but to safeguard the few NMCs interests UN agencies are working day and night spending billions and trillions of public money and creating health hazards. UN must stop this.
Dr. S. Jeevananda Reddy
We are not on the same page, Dr. Reddy.
Rrrrrobert of Ottawa — Please pardon my calling you “Rrrrobert of Calgary” above. Will try to remember.
“Janice Moore
November 30, 2015 at 9:43 am”
What’s the distance between the two? Sounds like it might be a round trip to the pub in Australia.
This money could be better spent ..
http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2012/mar/02/arms-sales-top-100-producers
http://www.vox.com/2014/8/8/5982501/the-us-is-now-bombing-its-own-military-equipment-in-iraq
29 Nov: AP: CLIMATE COUNTDOWN: Gates sparks multinational plan to spend billions on clean energy tech
By SYLVIE CORBET, KARL RITTER and SETH BORENSTEIN
Microsoft founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, President Barack Obama and French President Francois Hollande will launch a joint initiative on Monday after a diplomatic push in recent weeks ahead of the Paris climate conference.
A key goal is to bring down the cost of cleaner energy. At least 19 governments and 28 leading world investors, including Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, billionaires George Soros and Saudi Prince Alaweed bin Talal, and Jack Ma of China’s Alibaba, have signed on so far…
The business leaders are making their pledges conditional on governments also pledging more money, said a former U.S. government official who is familiar with the plan…
It also remains to be seen how much of this money will involve repackaging old promises, and whether the future funding will be approved in U.S. or other budgets…
http://www.startribune.com/calm-before-the-storm-as-paris-prepares-for-climate-summit/357837541/
29 Nov: Motley Fool: Travis Hoium: Why Growth Is the Enemy of Solar Stocks
It may sound strange, but growth has led to the downfall of most stocks in the solar industry.
But time after time, the companies that grow the fastest have been abysmal investments. Suntech Power, LDK Solar, Yingli Green Energy, and SunEdison are just a few of the former industry highfliers that have gone from darling status to bankruptcy, or that teeter on the verge of financial insolvency. They also provide a similar story of growth, debt, and massive losses that couldn’t be overcome by even more growth…READ ALL
http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/11/29/why-growth-is-the-enemy-of-solar-stocks.aspx
Bill Gates made his billions by luck. Now that he’s got them he has no idea what they are good for and takes witch doctors’ advice on renewables and other junk like that.
Bill Gates made his billions by being a scoundrel- standard industry model. Now he want to break the laws of physics- the only way that solar and wind will ever be economically viable.
Mr. Gates has that just fabulous estate to use as proof of concept. Let him load it up with green projects and flip the switch to the power company.
Cross fertilizing. Dr Curry has a fine article on the cost of green energy in Germany and California.
http://judithcurry.com/2015/11/29/deep-de-carbonisation-of-electricity-grids/#more-20559
Proof that Gates is not as smart as he thinks he is. A fool and his money are soon parted.
I object:
“Developing countries like India, the third-largest fossil-fuel polluter,”
I don’t consider CO2 a pollutant in spite of the EPA. so this is a mid-statement from the get go. When did you stop beating your wife?
The Grauniad?
http://indiaclimatedialogue.net/2014/07/17/millions-die-indians-still-cook-wood-dung/
A number of things come to mind.
1. Bill can afford it; $1 billion is pocket change to him.
2. You can be sure he will be sucking in the subsidies; he is a rent seeker.
3. He will not be affected by the policies he advocates.
4. No windmills or solar farms will be built within view of his estates.
5. He will feel good about himself for having done his bit to “save the planet”.
“If we create the right environment for innovation, we can accelerate the pace of progress, develop and deploy new solutions, and eventually provide everyone with reliable, affordable energy that is carbon free …”.
=========================
In other words world leaders will be gathering in Paris shortly to commit their hapless constituents to an ever increasing proportion of energy supply which is unreliable and unaffordable.
Why is it that the very wealthy feel comfortable speaking for the rest of us when it comes to the world we deserve? For all his billions he hasn’t enough money to pop a blister on the climate’s butt. The shortages and expenses of a green economy we will face will not be felt by him. I’d have a whole lot more respect for him if he spent his money keeping the furnaces going in the the homes of elderly Brits this winter. That will never happen because he really doesn’t care about solving problems, and his views on population control belie his ambitions. http://www.naturalnews.com/029911_vaccines_Bill_Gates.html
He makes AlGore look like a saint.
Elitists like Bill and Obama make rules that everybody else must obey !! They are Elitists, so they think they should be immune from their own stupid ideas !
the full team includes Bezos, Branson etc etc:
Breakthrough Energy Coalition – Who we are
http://www.breakthroughenergycoalition.com/en/who.html?/#/jeff-bezos
“I am NOT fine with these pompous wealthy egos telling the little people how to live.”
Exactly how I feel. Besides being a nuclear safety expert I am renewable energy expert in Washington state. When we were done building new reactors, I thought I would become an environmental engineer. Two local environmental problems are feedlot manure and semi-arid forest health. Well established engineered solutions of anaerobic digestion and biomass gasification fix the environmental and produce electricity while reducing ghg emissions.
What did I learn? Like nuclear power, there are many proven engineered solutions. However, wind and solar are the politically correct solutions.
I’m sure someone MUST have already said it.
A FOOL and his money.. is soon parted.
Did you know that Dick Smith stores don’t sell ONE SINGLE Australian made product !!
I actually went into a store and asked a few months ago. !!
Tricky Dicky sold out to Woolies in 1982 for $22 million. In Sept 2012, Woolies sold DSE to Anchorage Capital Partners for $94 Million. Dick Smith is also AGW/ACC follower.
At least Bill Gates recognizes that wind and solar are unlikely to be the answer. He also apparently knows about LENR having visited a prominent researcher in Italy.
It looks like LENR (cold fusion) shows the most promise. Industrial Heat LLC has built a commercial 1 MW thermal LENR plant that has been running well at a customer’s site for nine months as part of a year trial. The results will be published in Feb/Mar 2016. .It is operating well according to Norway’s largest newspaper Aftenposten and other independent sources.
LENR provides very cheap, safe, pollution free energy, with no radiation and no waste products. Contrary to what you read in the press even Fleischmann and Pon’s original 1989 experiment has been replicated. It required the Palladium to be more highly loaded with Deuterium than the early replicators did. Group-think conventional science and the DOE tried to commit infanticide of the field and should be held accountable. See http://www.lenrproof.com for a basic introduction.
It looks like LENR (cold fusion) shows the most promise.
Of course. It’s designed specifically to look just like that.
Doesn’t work, of course,. But it sure looks good to gullible idiots.
Well, we’ll know in “Feb./Mar. 2016”–unless Rossi yanks away the football again.
Bill Gates does not make significant amounts of electricity. Same with LENR.
There is unfinished reactors in Washington State. While finishing them would make Bill very unpopular in his Seattle backyard 200 miles away. He would be a hero in Richland, Washington where they love nuclear, wind, and hydro.
I can provide Bill a list of good projects in his backyard. It is not a secret and they have been waiting for funding for 20 years. Bill is only interested producing press releases that impress the ignorant.
Green/Leftism is not about achieving tangible results. It is all about having good intentions.
Anyone got road to a hell, needing paving?
Shovel ready?
Strewth! Don’t get Gates to fund it. It’ll be a master b@lls up just like Window$. To fix windows…use the car analogy. Stop the car (Well it would have anyway). Open the windows, open the doors, get out, walk around the car, get in, close the doors, close the windows and start the engine. Everything runs fine, until the next GPF/BSOD.
Gates is in this for easy money! Like Branson, like Gore, like the British Royal family, like all the rest on the receiving side of the green “revolution”.
If we spent the $billion on thorium molten salt reactors we could have a safe clean supply of electricity …forever…or near as damn it.
Hari who is we? Bad news, you will be dead long before we run out of anything. Also do you have any experience with dirty power plants.
Frankly, you sound like those silly California school children taking about dirty coal plants. They have never seen one. They learned it from even sillier California school teachers who also have never a dirty coal plant.
I have seen dirty coal plants. Downtown where I grew up. People heated houses with coal too. It snowed grey.
I have not seen any lately. The coal industry either closed or installed pollution controls. We stopped heating houses with coal. The air is clean.
Problem solved.
I note that Mr. Bill vain not spent so much money, because until now in vain spent several thousand times more than what it offers. That climate change research that takes place in the current form, is just a bottomless pit, whose mouth insatiable politics, not science.
If you can get to that gentleman was, I will suggest to him how this problem can be solved quickly simpler, fairer and more natural than it is now taking place.
With this billion dollars, which he offers for a new technology, he and I will investigate and prove all the true causes of climate change. Now of that money I’m not looking for anything, except my cost to participate, and when it is proved that what I offer, exactly, then certainly that I and BIL become rich by virtue of mankind to return to the path of natural law. We’ll ask us to pay for those who can annually futile and unknowingly lose hundreds of billions of dollars.
TAKE THIS IS STRICTLY SERIOUSLY !!!
NIKOLA