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Thank you very much.

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When I was a boy,

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my parents would sometimes
take me camping in California.

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We would camp in the beaches,
in the forests, in the deserts.

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Some people think the deserts
are empty of life

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but my parents taught me
to see the wildlife all around us:

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the hawks, the eagles, the tortoises.

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One time when we were setting up camp,

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we found a baby scorpion
with its stinger out,

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and I remember thinking how cool it was

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that something could be
both so cute and also so dangerous.

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After college, I moved to California

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and I started working on a number
of environmental campaigns,

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I got involved in helping to save
the state's last ancient redwood forests

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and blocking a proposed radioactive
waste repository set for the desert.

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Shortly after I turned 30,

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I decided I wanted to dedicate
a significant amount of my life

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to solving climate change.

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I was worried that global warming
would end up destroying

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many of the natural environments

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that people had worked
so hard to protect.

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I thought the technical solutions
were pretty straightforward -

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Solar panels on every roof,
electric car in the driveway -

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that the main obstacles were political.

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And so I helped to organize a coalition

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of the country's biggest labor unions
and biggest environmental groups.

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Our proposal was for a 300 billion
dollar investment in renewables.

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And the idea was not only
would we prevent climate change,

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but we would also create
millions of new jobs

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in a very fast-growing high-tech sector.

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Our efforts really paid off in 2007,

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when then-presidential candidate
Barack Obama embraced our vision.

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And between 2009 and 2015,
the US invested 150 billion dollars

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in renewables and other
kinds of clean tech.

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but right away we started
to encounter some problems.

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So first of all, the electricity from solar rooftops

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ends up costing about twice as much
as the electricity from solar farms.

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And both solar farms and wind farms
require covering a pretty significant

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amount of land with solar panels
and wind turbines

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and also building very big transit
lines to bring all that electricity lines

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to bring all that electricity
from the countryside into the city.

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Both of those things were often very
strongly resisted by local communities,

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as well as by conservation biologists

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who were concerned about the impacts
on wild bird species and other animals.

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Now, there was a lot of other people

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working on technical
solutions at the time.

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One of the big challenges, of course,

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is just the intermittency
of solar and wind

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they only generate electricity
about 10 to 30 percent of the time

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during most of year.

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but some of the solutions
that were being proposed

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were to convert hydroelectric
dams into gigantic batteries.

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the idea was that when the Sun

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was shining and the wind was blowing you

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would pump the water uphill store it for

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later and then when you needed

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electricity run it over the turbines in

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terms of Wildlife some of these problems

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just didn't seem like a significant

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concern so when I learned that house

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cats kill billions of birds every year

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it put into perspective the hundreds of

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thousands of birds rather that are

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killed by wind turbines it basically

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seemed to me at the time that most if

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not all of the problems of scaling up

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solar and wind could be solved through

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more technological innovation but as the

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years went by these problems persisted

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and in many cases grew worse so

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California is a state that's really

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committed to renewable energy but we

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still haven't converted many of our

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hydroelectric dams into big batteries

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some of the problems are just Geographic

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it's just you have to have a very

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particular kind of formation to be able

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to do that and even in those cases it's

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quite expensive to make those

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conversions other challenges are just

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that there's other uses for water like

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irrigation and maybe this is the most

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significant problem is just that in

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California the water in our rivers and

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reservoirs is growing increasingly

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scarce and unreliable due to climate

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change in terms of this issue of

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reliability

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as a consequence of it we've actually

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had to stop the electricity coming from

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the solar farms into the cities because

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there's just been too much of it at

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times or we've been starting to pay our

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neighboring states like Arizona to take

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that solar electricity the alternative

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is to suffer from blowouts of the grid

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and it turns out that

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when it comes to birds and cats cats

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don't kill Eagles Eagles kill cats what

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cats kill are the small common sparrows

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and Jay's and Robins birds that are not

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endangered and not at risk of going

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extinct what what do kill Eagles and

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other big birds like this kite as well

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as owls and condors and other threatened

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and endangered species are wind turbines

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in fact they're one of the most

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significant threats to those big bird

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species that we have we just haven't

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been introducing the airspace with many

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other objects like we have wind turbines

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over the last several years and in terms

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of solar you know building a solar farm

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is a lot like building any other kind of

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farm you have to clear the whole area of

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Wildlife

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so this is a picture of one third of one

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of the biggest solar farms in California

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called Ivanpah in order to build this

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they had to clear the whole area of

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desert tortoises literally pulling

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desert tortoises and their babies out of

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burrows putting them on the back of

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pickup trucks and transporting them to

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captivity where many of them ended up

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dying and currently the current

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estimates are that about 6,000 birds are

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killed every year actually catching on

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fire above the solar farm and plunging

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to their deaths over time it gradually

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struck me that there was really no

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amount of technological innovation that

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was gonna make the sunshine more

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regularly or wind blow more reliably in

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fact nothing could you could make solar

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panels cheaper you could make wind

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turbines bigger but sunlight and wind

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are just really dilute fuels and in

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order to produce significant amounts of

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electricity

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you just have to cover a very large land

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mass with them in other words all of the

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major problems with renewables aren't

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technical they're natural well dealing

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with all of this unreliability and the

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big environmental impacts obviously

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comes at a pretty high economic cost you

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know we've been hearing a lot about how

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solar panels and wind turbines have come

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down in cost in recent years but that

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cost has been significantly outweighed

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by just the challenges of integrating

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all of that unreliable power onto the

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grid just take for instance what's

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happening

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or Nia at the period in which solar

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panels have come down in price very

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significantly same with wind we've seen

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our electricity prices go up five times

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more than the rest of the country and

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it's not unique to us you can see the

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same phenomenon happened in Germany

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which is really the world's leader in

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solar wind and other renewable

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technologies their prices increased 50

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percent during their big renewable

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energy push now you might think well

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dealing with climate change is just

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going to require that we all pay more

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for energy that's what I used to think

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but consider the case of France France

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actually gets twice as much of its

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electricity from clean zero emission

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sources than does Germany and yet France

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pays half as much almost half as much

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for its electricity how can that be well

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you might have already anticipated the

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answer France gets most of its

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electricity from nuclear power

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about 75% in total and nuclear just ends

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up being a lot more reliable generating

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power 24 hours a day seven days a week

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for about 90% of the year we see this

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phenomenon show up at a global level so

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for example there's been a natural

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experiment over the last 40 years even

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more than that or in terms of the

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deployment of nuclear and the deployment

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of solar you can see that at a little

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bit higher cost we got about half as

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much electricity from solar and wind

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than we did from nuclear well what does

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all this mean for going forward I think

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one of the most significant findings to

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date is this one had Germany spent five

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hundred eighty billion dollars on

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nuclear instead of renewables it would

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already be getting a hundred percent of

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its end of its electricity from clean

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energy sources and all of its

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transportation energy now I think you

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might be wondering and it's quite

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reasonable to ask is nuclear power safe

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and what do you do with the waste well

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those are very reasonable questions

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turns out that there's been scientific

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studies on this going over 40 years this

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is just the most recent study that was

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done by the prestigious British Medical

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Journal Lancet finds that nuclear power

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is the safest it's easy to understand

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why according to the World Health

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Organization about 7 million people die

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annually from air pollution and nuclear

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plants don't emit that as a result the

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climate scientist James Hansen looked at

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and he calculated that nuclear power has

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already saved almost two million lives

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to date it turns out that even wind

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energy is more deadly than nuclear this

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is a photograph taken of two maintenance

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workers in the Netherlands

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shortly before one of them fell to his

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death to avoid the fire and the other

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one was engulfed in flames

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now what about environmental impact well

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I think a really easy way to think about

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it is that uranium fuel which is what we

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use to power nuclear plants is just

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really energy dense about his mouth

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about the same amount of uranium as this

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is this Rubik's Cube can power all of

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the energy that you need in your entire

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life

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as a consequence you just don't need

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that much land in order to produce a

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significant amount of electricity here

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you can compare the solar farm I just

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described Ivanpah to California's last

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nuclear plant Diablo Canyon it takes 450

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times more land to generate the same

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amount of electricity as it does from

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nuclear you would need 17 more solar

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farms like Ivanpah in order to generate

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the same output as Diablo Canyon and of

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course it would then be unreliable well

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what about the mining and the waste and

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the material throughput well this has

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been studied pretty closely as well and

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it just turns out that solar panels

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require 17 times more materials than

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nuclear plants do in the form of cement

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glass concrete steel and that includes

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all the fuel used for those nuclear

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plants the consequence is that what

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comes out at the end since its material

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throughput is just not a lot of waste

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from nuclear all of the waste from the

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Swiss nuclear program fits into this

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room nuclear waste is actually the only

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waste from electricity production

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that's safely contained and internalized

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every other way of making electricity

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emits that waste into the natural

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environment either as pollution or as

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material waste we tend to think of solar

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panels as clean but the truth is is that

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there is no plan to deal with solar

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panels at the end of their 20 or 25 year

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life a lot of experts are actually very

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concerned that solar panels are just

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going to be shipped to poor countries in

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Africa or Asia with the rest of our

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electronic way

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stream to be disassembled often exposing

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people to really high levels of toxic of

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toxic elements including lead cadmium

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and chromium elements that because their

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elements their toxicity never declines

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over time I think we have an intuitive

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sense that nuclear is a really powerful

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strong energy source and that sunlight

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is really dilute and diffuse and weak

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which is why you have to spread solar

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collectors or wind collectors over such

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a large amount of land maybe that's why

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nobody was surprised when in the recent

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science-fiction remake of Blade Runner

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the film opens a very dark dystopian

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scene where California's deserts have

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been entirely paved with solar farms all

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of which I think raises a really

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uncomfortable question in the effort to

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try to save the climate are we

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destroying the environment well the

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interesting thing is that over the last

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several hundred years human beings have

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actually been trying to move away from

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what you would consider matter dense

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fuels towards energy dense ones that

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means really from wood and dung towards

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coal oil natural gas uranium this is a

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phenomenon that's been going on for a

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long time poor countries around the

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world are in the process still of moving

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away from wood and dung as their primary

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energies and for the most part this is a

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positive thing as you stop using wood as

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your major source of fuel it allows the

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forests to grow back and the wildlife to

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return as you stop burning wood in your

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home you don't you no longer need to

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breathe that toxic smoke and as you go

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from coal to natural gas and uranium is

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your main sources of energy it holds out

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the possibility of basically eliminating

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air pollution altogether there's just

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this problem with nuclear well it's been

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pretty popular to move from dirtier to

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cleaner energy sources from energy

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diffuse to energy dense sources nuclear

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is just really unpopular for a bunch of

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historical reasons and as a consequence

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in the past I and I think a lot of

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others have sort of said well in order

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to deal with climate change we're just

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going to need all the different kinds of

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clean energy that we have the problem is

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is that just turns out not to be true

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you remember I discussed France a little

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bit ago France

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gets most of its electricity from

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nuclear if France were to try to

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significantly scale up solar and wind it

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would also have to significantly reduce

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how much electricity it gets from

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nuclear that's because in order to

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handle the huge variability of solar and

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wind on the grid they would need to burn

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more natural gas think of it this way

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it's just really hard to ramp up and

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down a nuclear plant whereas I think

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we're all pretty familiar with turning

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the natural gas up and down on our stove

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a similar process works in managing the

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grid of course goes without saying that

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oil and gas companies understand this

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pretty well which is why we've seen them

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invest millions of dollars in recent

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years in promoting solar and wind this

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just raises I think another challenging

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question which is that in places that

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are using a lot of nuclear have grids

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that are mostly nuclear and hydro going

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towards solar and wind and other

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renewables would actually increase

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carbon emissions I think a better

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alternative is just to tell the truth

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and that's what a number of scientists

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have been doing I mentioned earlier that

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hundreds of thousands of birds are

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killed every year by wind turbines but I

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didn't mention is that a million bats at

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a minimum are killed every year by wind

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the consequence has been that bad

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scientists have been speaking out about

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this this particular bat species the

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hoary bat which is a migratory bat

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species is literally at risk of going

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extinct right now because of the

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significant expansion of wind it's not

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just wind it's also on solar the

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scientists who were involved in creating

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the Ivanpah solar farm who involved in

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clearing that land have been speaking

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out one of them wrote everybody knows

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that translocation of desert tortoises

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doesn't work when you're walking in

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front of a bulldozer or crying and

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moving animals and cacti out of the way

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it's hard to think that the project is a

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good idea and now we can see these

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phenomena at work at an international

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level in my home state of California

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we've been stuffing a lot of natural gas

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into the side of a mountain in order to

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handle all that intermittent solar and

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wind

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it's sprung a leak it was equivalent to

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putting 500,000 cars on the road and

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currently in Germany there's protesters

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trying to block a new coal mining

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project

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that would involve destroying the

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ancient Han back forest in order to get

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to the coal underneath all in an effort

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to phase out nuclear and expand solar

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and wind the good news is is that I

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think that people still care about

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nature enough for these facts to matter

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we saw last year in South Korea a

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citizen's jury deliberated for several

403
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months weighing these different issues

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they had to decide whether they were

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going to phase out nuclear or keep it

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and expanded they started out 40 percent

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in favor of expanding nuclear but after

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several months and considering these

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issues they ended up voting 60 percent

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to expand nuclear a similar phenomena

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just happened last week in Arizona the

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voters had a ballot initiative that to

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vote on whether or not to continue with

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nuclear or to phase it out and try to

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replace it with natural gas and solar

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they ended up rejecting at 70 to 30 and

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even here in Europe we saw the

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Netherlands is that one of the first

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countries in recent memory to actually

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announce as they did last week that

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they're going to start to they're gonna

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start to increase their reliance on

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nuclear power in recognition that

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there's just no way they could generate

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significant amounts of energy enough

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00:16:43,110 --> 00:16:44,970
from solar and wind to meet their

427
00:16:44,970 --> 00:16:47,370
climate targets I think it's natural

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that those of us that became very

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concerned about climate change such a

430
00:16:51,210 --> 00:16:53,310
big environmental issue would gravitate

431
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towards really romantic solutions like

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harmonizing human civilization with the

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00:16:58,980 --> 00:17:01,140
natural world using renewable energies

434
00:17:01,140 --> 00:17:03,090
but I think it's also understandable

435
00:17:03,090 --> 00:17:05,849
that as the facts have come in that many

436
00:17:05,849 --> 00:17:07,650
of us have started to question our prior

437
00:17:07,650 --> 00:17:10,410
beliefs and change our minds for me the

438
00:17:10,410 --> 00:17:14,030
question now is now that we know that

439
00:17:14,030 --> 00:17:16,859
renewables can't save the planet are we

440
00:17:16,859 --> 00:17:18,660
going to keep letting them destroy it

441
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thank you very much