Is Bill Gates Backing Risky Geoengineering Projects?

Bill Gates, the very macro-founder of Microsoft and godfather to PCs everywhere, has begun channeling some of his massive coffers into green tech ventures. He may not be the first IT mogul to dive into green tech funding, but Gates is certainly diving in headfirst. The question is, is he diving into the shallow end?

So far he’s invested in traveling wave nuclear power and green venture capitalist Vinod Khosla — not exactly way out-there funding. But now, the billionaire philanthropist is plunging deeper than anyone else of his stature and fame, into the outer reaches of climate change technology, blasting into that “galaxy far, far away” where few dare to tread. Bill Gates is funding geoengineering.

At the annual TED conference in February, Gates addressed climate change for the first time, stating that we need  “energy miracles” to avoid the worst of what global warming has to offer. Judging by where his most recent investments have landed, he may believe we can manufacture our own miracles.

Gates recently gave $4.5 million to fund research into planet-cooling strategies, reports the Ottawa Citizen. The funding was split between David Keith of the University of Calgary and Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institute for Science, who then disseminated the money to a variety of research projects, including one that plans to “seed” artificial clouds into the sky to cool the atmosphere.

$300,000 went to Armand Neukermanns, a researcher involved in the Silver Lining Project in San Francisco. That program is studying how tiny droplets of water splayed out over the ocean could actually whiten clouds so they’ll reflect more sunlight back to space. They plan to run a test trial soon, using “cloud ships” to blast the tiny drops of seawater about a kilometer into the atmosphere.

Geoengineering is extremely controversial, on par with embryonic stem cells and genetic engineering. Detractors see it as playing with fire, potentially complicating or accelerating our already-hazardous climate situation. The logic goes that if humans are at least in part responsible for global warming, by way of atmospheric tampering via pollution, how can it possibly be a good idea to directly alter the atmosphere?

Gates is already receiving criticism for the move, which is risky by any financial standard as well, and will no doubt receive more. To be fair, whether he ever intended money to go to the Silver Lining Project is unclear. But if not, he may want to keep better track of where his funding goes in the future.

Other geoengineering ideas include sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and planting massive forests of super carbon-sucking, fast-growing, artificial trees that could collect CO2 then be burnt into charcoal and buried forever.

Photo Credit: Wa-J

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