New public and private funding commitments were announced for clean energy R&D at this month’s UN climate summit. As part of the new Mission Innovation initiative, 20 countries, including China, Saudi Arabia and the US, plan to double their current combined $10 billion in spending on clean energy R&D within five years. The US accounts for $5 billion of this spending, but any new funding will require congressional approval. In addition, 28 business leaders, including Bill Gates, Alibaba Chairman Jack Ma and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, have formed the Breakthrough Energy Coalition. The Coalition will invest in commercializing new clean energy technologies in order to address the “valley of death” between technology research and commercialization. The initial focus areas of the Coalition’s investments will be generating and storing electricity, transportation, industrial use, agriculture and energy efficiency.

Source: Reuters