Nathan Myhrvold: The Wealthy Should Fund Innovation

There is a serious argument to be made that very wealthy individuals are the only ones who can fund certain projects. But no one as wealthy as Myhrvold can make that argument seriously. So here are two links. I'm pretty sure that neither author has ever called for a pay-per-click internet:

http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/07/the...

http://www.overcomingbias.com/2012/01/we-need-the-very-rich....

>If 20 of us were to try to solve energy problems—with carbon capture and storage, or perhaps some other crazy idea—maybe one or two of us would actually succeed. If nobody tries, we'll all certainly fail.

I love the hubris, if him or say 20 of his wealthy friends don't solve the problem, I mean who could? Because history shows all advancement is done only by extremely wealthy folks.

>Unfortunately, no such technology can completely replace fossil fuels, which provide base-load power all day and night, regardless of whether the wind is blowing or the sun is shining. There is no carbon-free base-load power source except nuclear energy.

I admit to knowing nothing of this area, but is energy storage just useless? I always hear the 'what about off-cycle demand' used as a cudgel against things like wind/solar/hydro/etc.. power. Is it really impossible / terribly inefficient to store energy for later use? If so is there no chance of advancement there and thus the only hope is something like nuclear? Honest question.

>There are few technologies more daunting to inventors (and investors) than nuclear power.

I agree investors are more likely to say fund, cat-sharing-social-coupon-web 3.0 venture over say 'long lead new power breakthrough', but something tells me with the sheer buckets of money that would accompany such a discovery that some people are definitely working on it. Whether those people are VC/billionaires or government, something tells me if Myhrvold died tomorrow (please god) that all research in alternative energy wouldn't grind to a halt never to be pursued again.

>Like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, I was once a little boy who played with model rockets and aspired to learn nuclear physics.

And then go on to troll the world? One of these folks is not like the others.

And how does one get wealthy...Patent troll!

WTF. This theory needs some dogfooding.