Business leaders form clean energy council

Business leaders to meet President

The business leaders have formed the American Energy Innovation Council, which is calling upon Washington to spend $16 billion annually on research into energy innovation, such as biofuels and car batteries. This figure is over three times higher than the Department of Energy's current $5 billion research budget.

Mr. Gates highlighted the need for additional funds during an interview with NPR last night and he argued that a strong and close relationship between businesses and governments is imperative for the energy sector to thrive. He drew parallels with the history of other sectors, such as IT, and the way in which innovation in the energy sector should replicate the research and development (R&D) that took place in these areas.

"Government investment unlocks a huge amount of private sector activity" said Mr. Gates, going on to discuss the huge impact government funding had within both the IT and pharmaceutical industries.

"Here in energy we're saying to go up from less than $5 billion to $16 billion" Mr. Gates explained. This then "creates jobs and it creates new technologies that will be productised but the government has to prime the pump here. The basic ideas, as in those other industries, started with government investment."

The meeting will also be attended by business leaders Ursula Burns, who is Chairwoman of Xerox, as well as Cummins Chairman Tim Solso, and Silicon Valley venture capitalist John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and will take place at the White House this Thursday.

US energy industry falling behind

Although the amount of money the business leaders are calling upon to be invested is a huge amount, Mr. Doerr claimed that this is really just a drop in the ocean compared to the vast amounts being invested in other areas and said "Americans spend more money per year on potato chips than they do on clean energy research."

Mrs. Burns argued that the US is overly reliant on international industries and more needs to be done internally in order to move the US energy industry forward.

"There is too much dependence on foreign innovation to fuel the United States. It seems to be backwards. It shouldn't be that way. That's not the way this country was formed," said Mrs. Burns and claimed that continuation of this trend will ultimately result in "long-term dependence on a very brittle, very fragile system."

Mr. Gates currently funds many different companies and he argued that only through widespread investment will real advancements be made.

"I'm backing, just myself, over 50 different energy companies" revealed Mr. Gates. "I guarantee the majority of them will fail because [for] the one that's the most economic the prize is very big. It's very similar to the IT revolution or the biotech revolution. It's just that we haven't gotten started."

All of the business leaders are emphasising the need for strong R&D within the energy sector and believe that this area could be one of huge growth, profit and success. If the US fails to invest in the energy industry, these leaders believe that other countries will be running with the baton, so to speak, and the US will be left behind.

As Mrs. Burns said: "We don't do well following. We do very, very well leading."

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