Bill Gates and 28 other billionaires have joined together to establish the Breakthrough Energy Catalyst (BE Catalyst) with an aim to adopt green products, innovate and reduce their costs to help achieve the goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
The goal is to make the other green products follow the same cycle of early adoption, innovation and cost reductions that made solar power and microwave ovens so much cheaper, Gates wrote in a blog post.
Catalyst will fund its first projects next year and announced its first major funding partnership. During the next five years, the European Commission and Catalyst will mobilize a total of $1 billion, in partnership with the European Investment Bank, to build large-scale, commercial demonstration projects in Europe that fit within the four areas of investment: long-duration energy storage, sustainable aviati