At the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit last week, Bill Gates made the case that energy research funding ought to be doubled, as its capital-intensive nature makes developments occur on a much longer timeframe than for other technologies.
Modeled after DARPA and its leading-edge defense research, Advanced Research Projects Agency – Energy (ARPA-E) was first funded under the Department of Energy in 2009 to encourage high-risk, high-reward emerging energy technologies. Gates, who backs the TerraPower travelling wave reactor project, joined Energy Secretary Steven Chu at a panel discussion during the conference.
While the public has grown used to rapid development in technologies like computer chips, Gates said people tend to drastically underestimate the economic challenges, siting difficulties, regulatory constraints and time involved in reaching breakthroughs in the energy sector. To overcome these challenges, Gates said the country should make greater investments in energy innovation: “Energy research in the U.S. across the board is greatly under funded, I’d say by a factor of two … It’s crazy how little we’re funding this energy stuff.”
He’s long been a champion of using new nuclear technologies that provide reliable baseload power and have a minimal impact on the climate. Even though brand new nuclear power concepts that can compete with cheap fossil energy are hard to bring to market, Gates said, “The intellectual power of what’s been done in the nuclear space should allow for some radical designs that meet the very tough [safety] requirements that people should have there. So it should be one of the places we pursue, and it’s amazing to see, at least on paper, what is possible.”