Bill Gates has an idea for how to accelerate research, innovation, and adoption of new technologies.

Through BE Catalyst, the airline will be able to invest in a large refinery that produces a high volume of sustainable fuel. As the refinery gets going, the airline can start buying fuel there. Even better, once the plant’s design is proven to work, the cost of building subsequent plants will drop. With more refineries in operation, the volume of available fuel will go up and the price will come down, which will make it more attractive to buyers, which will draw more innovative companies into the market. The virtuous cycle will accelerate.

Gates Notes

So if I understand correctly, once you have a promising technology, this is a way to try to accelerate the learning curve. Often promising technologies don’t catch on because the initial unit cost is to be commercially viable. Bringing the technology to market at scale will drive down the price both because the up front investment is spread over a large number of units, and because manufacturers and users will learn by doing and the technology will improve. But there is a chicken and egg problem where somebody has to stick their neck out and make that up-front investment to get the process started, then be patient while it plays out possibly over many decades, and be willing to take at least some risk that it may not work out. So the idea behind this non-profit group seems to be to share enough of that risk so commercial entities are willing to invest.

Four specific technologies are mentioned for this process: long-duration energy storage, sustainable aviation fuels, direct air capture (of greenhouse gases), and green hydrogen.

This sounds good to me. Maybe a model like this could work in the architecture, engineering, and construction industry, where technological progress is painfully slow and the payoff of technology is likely to be over multiple decades at least.