A group led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates released a blueprint Tuesday to create a new program within the Department of Energy to accelerate emerging clean energy technologies.
Breakthrough Energy’s $200 million proposal called “Fast Track” is aimed at eliminating federal funding gaps for promising technologies that cut greenhouse gas emissions and blocking the so-called “Valley of Death” that can prevent innovations from moving from the lab to the marketplace.
“We are deeply supportive of all the implementation work that DOE has done,” said Adria Wilson, the plan’s lead author and the director of policy for Breakthrough Energy’s U.S. policy and advocacy team. “But Fast Track could bridge gaps where no support currently exists. We put a price tag on it and named specific authorities because it’s easier to adopt a specific vision.”
The program would leverage existing federal resources such as the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and Office of Technology Transitions, and would not need additional congressional appropriations, at least initially. For example, it would open up the resources of DOE’s 17 national laboratories to early-stage innovators through a voucher program modeled after other federal small business voucher programs.
