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In February, the Obama administration announced its so-called Clean Energy Investment Initiative, a program that was seeking to generate $2 billion in commitments from the private sector to help spur clean energy innovation.
Just four months later, it seems, investors have willingly answered the call twice over amid rebounding interest in renewable energy.
The Obama administration said today that a collection of philanthropic groups, universities, and for-profit institutions have committed $4 billion to invest in clean energy. These are investments that might not fit in the average investor's portfolio. Instead, the money will fund things like solar, wind, and fuel cell technology, the type of potentially transformative innovation that all too often never sees the light of day because funding dries up.
Original Submission
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 17 2015, @11:34PM
Being the armchair politician I am, the strategy should be to tax carbon sources. If the goal is to reduce carbon output, then tax carbon. Don't try to promote alternatives.
Yay! Nuclear energy will trump all! As it should, if not for scaremongering troglodytes and fools who ignore pollution of battery production needed without said nuclear energy leveling things off.
If it's clean energy you want, you won't find a cleaner source than Nuclear... but that's an expensive growth area, and so existing energy companies advocate for government funding to expand into other less regulated higher profit areas, such as merely researching "Clean Tech".
I like your idea, it has a low probability of being duped, but the anti-nuclear propaganda will ensure it's no better of a plan than just letting energy companies do whatever they want (since that's what they are doing). Who do you think came up with the idea to hand them that grant money in the first place?
The real answer is to raise the cost of buying politicians such that the return on investment is less than innovation in an open market. Hell, if they openly wear their price tags, maybe the public can even buy a few instead of living in a pure plutocracy [economyincrisis.org] (as this Princeton study shows we are). So, remarkably, the answer is MORE GREED AND PAYOLA among politicians! This strategy is genius since it elegantly exploits the existing economic trends and pressures. What can possibly go wrong?!