【英语国际】盖茨：美国新能源领域扶持资金紧缺

Hundreds of start-ups are presenting advanced energy technologies at a Department of Energy conference this week. Their early-stage efforts are funded by a government grant program, called ARPA-e, but what happens next is a difficult question.

Will many of these useful and interesting U.S. technologies die on the vine because there won't be capital to take them further. Will they be bought and developed abroad?

Bill Gates, who spoke on stage at the conference, remarked on the tremendous lack of funding in this space, pointing especially to the government. 'It's crazy how little we are funding this energy stuff.' He also said that giving a little bit of money and making it seem as if that's practically all that's needed is a disservice.

'If we are underestimating how hard it is, we wind up underfunding,' said Gates.

Gates was not optimistic on the success, saying 90% of such novel energy projects will fail. 'We need a thousand companies,' he said, to test concepts to increase the chances of a truly meaningful technology breakthrough. But who will go in backing companies of such risk? Gates himself has a couple small bets -- he is an investor in Terrapower, a nuclear-technology start-up.

Yuliya Chernova

在美国能源部本周举办的一个会议上，数百家初创企业纷纷介绍其先进的能源技术。这些公司在创业阶段会受到美国能源部下属的能源高级研究计划署(ARPA-e)的资金支持，但接下来的情况才是让人犯愁的问题。

AFP/Getty Images比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)美国公司研发的这些有用且有趣的技术中，难道很多都将因为没有后续资金支持而胎死腹中？这些技术有没有可能被国外公司收购并到海外去做进一步开发呢？

在会上发表讲话的比尔•盖茨(Bill Gates)就谈到了美国能源领域资金匮乏的情况，而且还特别提到了美国政府。他说，看看能源领域获得的少得可怜的资金吧，简直荒唐。他还说，政府仅提供了一点钱，而且还要把这点钱弄得像是能源领域需要的全部资金，这是在帮倒忙。

盖茨说，如果对能源领域的困难估计不足，结果就会是提供的资金不足。

盖茨对于这些企业能否取得成功并不乐观，说这类创新能源项目有90%都会失败。他说，为提高实现重大科技突破的几率，市场上应该有上千家拿出了新能源技术的公司才对。但谁会来力挺带有如此风险的公司呢？盖茨自己就押宝了几个公司，核技术初创企业Terrapower便获得了他的投资。

Yuliya Chernova

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