Bill Gates sets a trend in funding energy… $84 million in ethanol last week

Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates invested $84 million in ethanol last week, and fellow computer pioneers are following that strategy in anticipation that technology will help wean America from its oil addiction.

Gates’ Cascade Investments LLC bought a stake in Pacific Ethanol Inc. of Fresno, Calif., which says it will become the largest seller of corn-based fuel additives on the West Coast. Vinod Khosla, founder of Santa Clara, Calif.-based Sun Microsystems Inc., the world’s fourth-largest maker of computer servers for networks, is financing ethanol fuel research.

Robert Metcalfe, the co-founder of 3Com Corp. of Marlborough, Mass., who helped invent Ethernet, the protocol for connecting computers, is testing a system to convert smokestack emissions into power-plant fuels.

By TOM CAHILL
BLOOMBERG NEWS

Full Story: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/267349_cleanenergy20.html