Who Bill Gates Looks To For Thoughts on Energy Innovation

Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates has been developing the equivalent influence of Oprah when it comes to plugging books, trends, and ideas. So who’s he reading in terms of energy innovation and greentech? A professor not known too widely known outside of energy and academic circles: Vaclav Smil.

This weekend the Globe and Mail published one of the few interviews with media-shy Smil, who is a distinguished Professor at the University of Manitoba and has published over 25 books on energy, and global trends, including Energy at the Crossroads, and Global Catastrophes and Trends: The Next 50 Years. On Gates’ website he writes:

In the last few months I have read three books by Vaclav Smil that I highly recommend. He also recently visited our offices and opened my eyes to new ways to think about solving our energy and environmental issues.

One of those notions is that it’s going to take a whole lot longer to remake the energy landscape with clean power than many have been hoping. While Al Gore has called for 100 percent clean energy in 10 years, Smil tells the Global and Mail: “Every new technology takes 40 to 50 years before it captures the bulk of the market. As of today, there are no clean-energy technologies that can replace fossil fuels on a large scale.”

Smil is releasing his latest book Energy Myths and Realities: Bringing Science to the Energy Policy Debate on July 16. We’ll bring you a full review shortly after it comes out.

Bill Gates has started to bring a lot of attention to the issue of energy innovation, and along with venture capitalist John Doerr, Xerox CEO Ursula Burns, General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt, and Lockheed Martin CEO Norman Augustine, recently called for the federal government to invest $16 billion per year into spurring energy innovation. Gates has also been investing in greentech including in nuclear startup TerraPower and he is a limited partner in Khosla Venture’s greentech fund.

For more research on cleantech financing check out GigaOM Pro (subscription required):

Cleantech Financing 2010 & Beyond

Image courtesy of Vaclav Smil.

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