Bill Gates blogs about 'alternative energy'

In addition to his significant philanthropic efforts, Bill Gates has been interested in 'alternative energy' for some time. Very glad to see he is now divested from ethanol investment and is on-board with algae.

On his recently launched 'Gates Notes' website he has a series of podcasts (in .wma and .mp3 formats) he talks about the need for 'carbon-free energy sources' and makes the call for increased government funding of 'basic research in energy':

http://www.gatesnotes.com/Thinking/article.aspx?ID=104

Going to spend the morning listening!

Also glad to see he is giving Vaclav Smil page-space...

Okay, it's an hour and a half later...

Mentioned in the Gates podcast:

David MacKay - http://www.withouthotair.com/

Vaclav Smil - http://home.cc.umanitoba.ca/~vsmil/index.html

and some follow-up here - http://www.gatesnotes.com/Learning/article.aspx?ID=25

A couple recommendations from the 'Dummies' series -

http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Organic-Chemistry-I-For-Dummies.productCd-0764569023.html

and

http://www.dummies.com/store/product/Weather-For-Dummies.productCd-0764552430.html

And he mentions some online courseware that he's been studying on physics, but does not give many specifics on the podcast. Found this page for followup -

http://www.gatesnotes.com/Learning/article.aspx?ID=24

Not included there is a reference to Lewin, whom he mentions in the podcast -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Lewin_Lectures_on_Physics