A workable energy policy: what would $1 trillion do to help the problem?

One factor that is usually missing from pollution-control policies is the matter of investment in research. It is not taken seriously enough, despite being the single most important factor in this issue, the only capable of resolving it. We will not take care of energy problems any other way than through new technologies capable of sustaining a high quality of life.

Think for a moment what $1 trillion would bring to energy research. Spread out over 10 years, this represents $100 billion in annual budget (only 0.002% of the current world GDP). Significant improvements in several forms of alternative energies would combine to save much larger costs within a few years. More advanced forms of production, such as nuclear fusion, anti-matter and dark energy would also be much closer. We could create enormous wealth while helping to achieve energy independance.

The most efficient format would be a prize factor. Let's say there was a $100 billion prize on the development of a significantly higher efficiency and sustainability energy technology. The assurance of such a large payment would fuel scientific entrepreneurship, creating jobs and heliping science. I think it only makes sense that if someone were to develop something as significant as controlled nuclear fusion, solving all our energy problems, $100 billion would be a very small price compared to the wealth it would create. Smaller prizes could be granted for significant but lower improvements, encouraging a flourishing market of research securities.

It would be simple to build a system of private investment through stock options. Besides the large sums of the prizes, such discoveries are obviously lucrative patents that will generate significant royalties. So investments could be sold in the form of stock options on registered projects. After discovery, the stocks would be bonds of ownership on the royalties generated by the patents, shared equally with the creators of the patent.

Such high economic incentives would undoubtly be the most important builders of our energy efficiency. Small companies with the talent and know-how to achieve the objectives would be prime targets for very lucrative investments. Thousands of teams will compete to achieve the most lucrative goals. The X-Prizes and the Grand Challenge have proved that achievement prizes work as an incentive. If they covered all the possible discoveries that would benefit humankind, we would be in a win-all situation: public grants would only finance successfull attempts, private investment would be driven by a $100 billion a year industry, which would then be much larger thanks to those investments. There will be significant risks to investing in few research teams, but the prizes would be significant.

I have come to the conclusion that through the coming decades, all of wealth will concentrate in the form of intellectual property stocks, invested in patents that pay royalties. Knowledge will be a tradable commodity, the most lucrative of all. This energy research investment market would merely the beginning, as there are much more goals in the fields of technology and engineering. The assurance of a couple billions upon success is undoubtdly the single most powerful incentive to achieve any possible objective.