就在巴黎氣候大會召開期間，比爾·蓋茨和其他億萬富豪宣布“突破性能源聯盟”正式成立。這是一個全球性的私人投資者組織，主要致力于“對潛在的革命性能源體系進行早期投資”，其計劃投資的新能源體系具有一個特點，那就是“近乎零碳排放”。

“突破性能源聯盟”的成員既包括維珍公司的理查德·布蘭森、風投家約翰·道爾、維諾德·科斯拉等擁有清潔能源投資經驗的投資者，也吸引來了亞馬遜的杰夫·貝索斯、領英的里德·霍夫曼、Facebook的馬克·扎克伯格等一批清潔能源領域的新人，以及來自全球各地的對沖基金大佬和知名實業家。

作為多年從事清潔能源創新事業的融資與發展業務的投資人和咨詢顧問，我們樂見該聯盟以及其他類似組織的成立。必須得向蓋茨致敬，也許只有他才能將組織一個規格如此高的聯盟。

幾個月前，當蓋茨首次宣布將投資10億美元對抗氣候變化時，我們曾為財富網寫過一篇文章。讓我們擔心的是，他是否過于關注希望渺茫的新技術而忽視了改良和部署現有技術。

我們在文章中說道：“雖然在高風險技術上進行一些投資是必要的，但我們真正需要投入幾十億美元的領域，其實是擴大現有清潔能源技術的應用規模與業務模式創新。”

今天，我們要為蓋茨更全面的投資重點而鼓掌。蓋茨的“突破性能源聯盟”表示：“我們尋找的投資目標既包括全新的技術開發，也包括對現有技術進行創新，從而大幅改善其效率、規模和成本。不管是核心技術還是使能技術(enabling technology)，最關鍵的因素是必須能有一種可靠的途徑讓其迅速規模化……”

有些觀察人士認為蓋茨還是過于關注遙不可及的新技術了。氣候進展博客的喬·羅姆長期以來一直呼吁對能源領域投入更多研發資金，但他也認為，“除非該聯盟多關注提升現有技術，少關注突破性技術和‘能源奇跡’”，蓋茨的努力才會有價值。我們也同意這一點，但我們樂觀地認為，蓋茨和突破性能源聯盟正在朝著正確的方向走，而且隨著他們深入評估如何才能給環境帶來最大影響，他們還會繼續調整自己的方向。”

正如我們在之前的那篇文章中提到的那樣，這些企業家之所以能獲得如此大量的財富，有賴于其他公司已經率先完成了一項困難的且往往沒有回報的任務，即開發必要的計算機硬件和基礎架構。對于微軟、亞馬遜、Facebook、領英和Salesforce來說都是如此——這些公司的創始人也都是突破性能源聯盟的成員。這些公司的建立都依賴于計算機硬件、互聯網和通訊架構的進步，他們才能制造出一些革命性的軟件應用。

馬克·扎克伯格并非在線社交網絡的發明者，但他獨特地利用了計算能力、網絡和界面設計的改進，創造了更好的用戶體驗和解決方案，這就是Facebook為什么會擁有15億名會員。埃隆·穆斯克等企業家在清潔能源領域也在做著同樣的事，而我們需要更多投資來支持這些努力。

有一位科技大亨并未參加蓋茨發起的突破性能源聯盟，他就是PayPal的聯合創始人彼得·泰爾。他最近在《紐約時報》的專欄上指出，氣候積極人士應該像蓋茨過去那樣，支持核能技術。我們的觀點是，無論是新建更多昂貴的核電站，還是通過碳捕獲或排放控制技術凈化化石燃料和發電廠，其效果都比不上新技術對于數據和通訊的意義——也就是令它變得廉價、可以隨處獲得，并且使它能夠促進新的經濟增長。

如果突破性能源聯盟的承諾能快速地變成真金白銀的投資的話，那么它是有能力掀起能源行業的改革的。目前，該聯盟正在計劃與一個新的國際組織“創新使命”（Mission Innovation）的20個成員國展開合作，而該組織的各成員國也承諾未來5年將清潔能源領域的研發投資翻一番。

然而，突破性能源聯盟的真正影響在于，它向人們展示了科技領域的投資能對降低碳排放產生真實的近期影響。如果這些投資帶來了積極的成果，它將促進企業、養老基金和其它機構投資人也參與這項活動。

我們希望該聯盟重點發展能夠使清潔能源技術變得更廉價、更易用、更普及的應用，這些才是我們真正需要的突破。而蓋茨和這個聯盟有望發揮的獨特作用，很有希望推動這些突破早日實現。（財富中文網）

本文作者Stephan Dolezalek、Stefan Heck和Andrew Shapiro是擁有長期經驗的清潔能源投資者和咨詢顧問，也是Resourcient公司的創始人，該公司主要致力于促進資源效率領域的規模性投資。

譯者：樸成奎

審校：任文科

On Monday, just in time for the start of the Paris climate talks, Bill Gates and other wealthy entrepreneurs announced the creation of the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, a global group of private investors committed to “early-stage investing in potentially transformative energy systems” with “near zero carbon emissions.”

The coalition includes those with experience in clean energy investment, including Virgin’s Richard Branson, and venture capitalists John Doerr, and Vinod Khosla. But it also brings into the fold supporters new to the field – including Amazon’s AMZN -0.45% Jeff Bezos, LinkedIn’s LNKD -1.73% Reid Hoffman, Facebook’s FB -0.98% Mark Zuckerberg, as well as hedge fund titans and leading industrialists from around the world.

As investors and advisors who have been working for many years on new models to finance and scale up clean energy innovations, we’re delighted to see the formation of this Coalition and others like it. Kudos to Gates for organizing it at a scale perhaps only he could.

A few months ago, when Gates first announced his intent to invest another $1 billion on investments to fight climate change, we wrote an essay for Fortune.com expressing concern that he was focused too much on long-shot technologies and not enough on improving and deploying existing technologies.

We said: “While some investment in high-risk technology is needed, where we really need billions to be spent is on the scaling up of applications and business-model innovations that build upon currently available clean energy technologies.”

Today, we applaud what appears to be an expanded focus for Gates, whose Coalition says: “We are looking for outliers both in developing novel technologies AND in innovations which enable current technologies to be dramatically more efficient, scalable, or cheaper. Whether core or enabling technology, the key differentiating factor must be a credible pathway to rapid scaling…”

Some observers think Gates still remains too focused on moonshots. Joe Romm of Climate Progress, despite being a longtime advocate for more energy R&D spending, says Gates’s effort will only have value “if it focuses more on improving existing cleantech and less on breakthrough technologies and energy miracles.” We agree, but are optimistic Gates and the Coalition are moving in the right direction and will continue to shift as they evaluate how to make the biggest impact in a timely way.

As we previously noted of Gates, but equally true of most of the entrepreneurs who have joined the Coalition – their fortunes depended upon other companies first having completed the difficult and often unrewarding task of developing the necessary computer hardware and infrastructure. This is as true of Microsoft MSFT -0.02% as it is of Amazon, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Salesforce CRM -0.16% – whose founders are Coalition members. All of them built upon progress in computing hardware and Internet and communications infrastructure by creating specific software applications that revolutionized industries.

Mark Zuckerberg didn’t invent online social networking, but he uniquely leveraged improvements in computing power, networking, and interface design to create a better user experience and solution – which is why Facebook has 1.5 billion members. Entrepreneurs like Elon Musk are doing the same in clean energy and mobility and we need more investment to support these efforts.

One tech billionaire who didn’t join Gates’s group, Peter Thiel, argued recently in a New York Times op-ed that climate activists should, as Gates has in the past, embrace new nuclear technologies. Our view is that neither the building of more expensive new nuclear plants nor the cleaning up of fossil fuels and electricity generation through carbon capture or emissions controls will do in energy what new technologies did for data and communications – make it cheap, available everywhere and allow it to foster new economic growth.

Gates’s Coalition has the capacity to transform the energy industry — assuming its commitments turn rapidly into actual investments. Already, it is planning to work with twenty countries that are part of a related new group, Mission Innovation, whose members are committing to double their R&D investments in clean energy over the next five years.

But, the Coalition’s true impact will come from the influence it can have on others by demonstrating that investments made in technology can have real and near-term impact on carbon reduction. If those investments generate positive results, they will cause corporations, pension funds, and other institutional investors to join the movement.

We hope the Coalition will focus on applications that will make clean energy technologies as affordable, easy to use, and ubiquitous as a Facebook page. Those are the real breakthroughs we need – and ones that Gates and company can uniquely help to achieve.

Stephan Dolezalek, Stefan Heck, and Andrew Shapiro, long-time clean energy investors and advisors, are the founders of Resourcient, which promotes scalable investment in resource efficient businesses.