A group led by Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Tuesday unveiled a blueprint for creating a new program within the Department of Energy to accelerate emerging clean energy technologies.
Breakthrough Energy’s $200 million proposal, called “Fast Track,” aims to close a federal funding gap for promising technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and thwart the so-called “valley of death” that can prevent innovations from moving from the lab to the market.
“We fully support all of the implementation work that the Department of Energy has done,” said Adria Wilson, the plan’s lead author and policy director for Breakthrough Energy’s U.S. policy and advocacy team, “but fast track can fill in the gaps where there’s currently no support. We put a price tag on this and named specific authorities because it’s easier to adopt a specific vision.”
The program would leverage existing federal resources, such as those from the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) and the Technology Transition Office, and would not require additional congressional appropriations, at least initially. For example, it would open up the resources of the Department of Energy’s 17 national laboratories to early-stage innovators through a voucher program modeled on other federal small business voucher programs.
