WEBVTT

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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.

NOTE Paragraph

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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.

NOTE Paragraph

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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

00:11:56.740 --> 00:11:59.020
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

00:12:11.710 --> 00:12:14.140
means really from wood and dung towards

00:12:14.140 --> 00:12:16.990
coal oil natural gas uranium this is a

00:12:16.990 --> 00:12:18.310
phenomenon that's been going on for a

00:12:18.310 --> 00:12:20.230
long time poor countries around the

00:12:20.230 --> 00:12:22.090
world are in the process still of moving

00:12:22.090 --> 00:12:23.620
away from wood and dung as their primary

00:12:23.620 --> 00:12:26.500
energies and for the most part this is a

00:12:26.500 --> 00:12:29.980
positive thing as you stop using wood as

00:12:29.980 --> 00:12:32.050
your major source of fuel it allows the

00:12:32.050 --> 00:12:34.510
forests to grow back and the wildlife to

00:12:34.510 --> 00:12:36.340
return as you stop burning wood in your

00:12:36.340 --> 00:12:38.410
home you don't you no longer need to

00:12:38.410 --> 00:12:40.990
breathe that toxic smoke and as you go

00:12:40.990 --> 00:12:43.750
from coal to natural gas and uranium is

00:12:43.750 --> 00:12:45.790
your main sources of energy it holds out

00:12:45.790 --> 00:12:48.130
the possibility of basically eliminating

00:12:48.130 --> 00:12:50.830
air pollution altogether there's just

00:12:50.830 --> 00:12:53.050
this problem with nuclear well it's been

00:12:53.050 --> 00:12:55.240
pretty popular to move from dirtier to

00:12:55.240 --> 00:12:56.890
cleaner energy sources from energy

00:12:56.890 --> 00:12:59.890
diffuse to energy dense sources nuclear

00:12:59.890 --> 00:13:02.230
is just really unpopular for a bunch of

00:13:02.230 --> 00:13:04.780
historical reasons and as a consequence

00:13:04.780 --> 00:13:07.450
in the past I and I think a lot of

00:13:07.450 --> 00:13:09.520
others have sort of said well in order

00:13:09.520 --> 00:13:11.170
to deal with climate change we're just

00:13:11.170 --> 00:13:12.850
going to need all the different kinds of

00:13:12.850 --> 00:13:15.490
clean energy that we have the problem is

00:13:15.490 --> 00:13:16.990
is that just turns out not to be true

00:13:16.990 --> 00:13:19.600
you remember I discussed France a little

00:13:19.600 --> 00:13:20.920
bit ago France

00:13:20.920 --> 00:13:22.240
gets most of its electricity from

00:13:22.240 --> 00:13:24.430
nuclear if France were to try to

00:13:24.430 --> 00:13:27.339
significantly scale up solar and wind it

00:13:27.339 --> 00:13:29.170
would also have to significantly reduce

00:13:29.170 --> 00:13:31.029
how much electricity it gets from

00:13:31.029 --> 00:13:32.980
nuclear that's because in order to

00:13:32.980 --> 00:13:35.980
handle the huge variability of solar and

00:13:35.980 --> 00:13:38.079
wind on the grid they would need to burn

00:13:38.079 --> 00:13:40.120
more natural gas think of it this way

00:13:40.120 --> 00:13:42.250
it's just really hard to ramp up and

00:13:42.250 --> 00:13:44.139
down a nuclear plant whereas I think

00:13:44.139 --> 00:13:45.790
we're all pretty familiar with turning

00:13:45.790 --> 00:13:47.829
the natural gas up and down on our stove

00:13:47.829 --> 00:13:50.350
a similar process works in managing the

00:13:50.350 --> 00:13:52.930
grid of course goes without saying that

00:13:52.930 --> 00:13:55.240
oil and gas companies understand this

00:13:55.240 --> 00:13:57.310
pretty well which is why we've seen them

00:13:57.310 --> 00:13:59.350
invest millions of dollars in recent

00:13:59.350 --> 00:14:03.250
years in promoting solar and wind this

00:14:03.250 --> 00:14:05.500
just raises I think another challenging

00:14:05.500 --> 00:14:07.990
question which is that in places that

00:14:07.990 --> 00:14:10.360
are using a lot of nuclear have grids

00:14:10.360 --> 00:14:14.170
that are mostly nuclear and hydro going

00:14:14.170 --> 00:14:15.639
towards solar and wind and other

00:14:15.639 --> 00:14:17.620
renewables would actually increase

00:14:17.620 --> 00:14:19.930
carbon emissions I think a better

00:14:19.930 --> 00:14:21.519
alternative is just to tell the truth

00:14:21.519 --> 00:14:23.380
and that's what a number of scientists

00:14:23.380 --> 00:14:25.620
have been doing I mentioned earlier that

00:14:25.620 --> 00:14:27.730
hundreds of thousands of birds are

00:14:27.730 --> 00:14:29.380
killed every year by wind turbines but I

00:14:29.380 --> 00:14:31.899
didn't mention is that a million bats at

00:14:31.899 --> 00:14:33.880
a minimum are killed every year by wind

00:14:33.880 --> 00:14:35.829
the consequence has been that bad

00:14:35.829 --> 00:14:37.480
scientists have been speaking out about

00:14:37.480 --> 00:14:40.209
this this particular bat species the

00:14:40.209 --> 00:14:42.339
hoary bat which is a migratory bat

00:14:42.339 --> 00:14:44.649
species is literally at risk of going

00:14:44.649 --> 00:14:46.449
extinct right now because of the

00:14:46.449 --> 00:14:48.940
significant expansion of wind it's not

00:14:48.940 --> 00:14:51.640
just wind it's also on solar the

00:14:51.640 --> 00:14:53.529
scientists who were involved in creating

00:14:53.529 --> 00:14:55.959
the Ivanpah solar farm who involved in

00:14:55.959 --> 00:14:58.149
clearing that land have been speaking

00:14:58.149 --> 00:15:01.120
out one of them wrote everybody knows

00:15:01.120 --> 00:15:03.399
that translocation of desert tortoises

00:15:03.399 --> 00:15:05.290
doesn't work when you're walking in

00:15:05.290 --> 00:15:07.089
front of a bulldozer or crying and

00:15:07.089 --> 00:15:09.160
moving animals and cacti out of the way

00:15:09.160 --> 00:15:11.199
it's hard to think that the project is a

00:15:11.199 --> 00:15:13.480
good idea and now we can see these

00:15:13.480 --> 00:15:16.540
phenomena at work at an international

00:15:16.540 --> 00:15:18.370
level in my home state of California

00:15:18.370 --> 00:15:20.410
we've been stuffing a lot of natural gas

00:15:20.410 --> 00:15:22.329
into the side of a mountain in order to

00:15:22.329 --> 00:15:23.860
handle all that intermittent solar and

00:15:23.860 --> 00:15:24.250
wind

00:15:24.250 --> 00:15:26.230
it's sprung a leak it was equivalent to

00:15:26.230 --> 00:15:28.300
putting 500,000 cars on the road and

00:15:28.300 --> 00:15:30.640
currently in Germany there's protesters

00:15:30.640 --> 00:15:33.220
trying to block a new coal mining

00:15:33.220 --> 00:15:34.320
project

00:15:34.320 --> 00:15:36.240
that would involve destroying the

00:15:36.240 --> 00:15:38.730
ancient Han back forest in order to get

00:15:38.730 --> 00:15:41.100
to the coal underneath all in an effort

00:15:41.100 --> 00:15:43.440
to phase out nuclear and expand solar

00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:46.380
and wind the good news is is that I

00:15:46.380 --> 00:15:48.510
think that people still care about

00:15:48.510 --> 00:15:50.310
nature enough for these facts to matter

00:15:50.310 --> 00:15:52.770
we saw last year in South Korea a

00:15:52.770 --> 00:15:55.110
citizen's jury deliberated for several

00:15:55.110 --> 00:15:56.880
months weighing these different issues

00:15:56.880 --> 00:15:58.890
they had to decide whether they were

00:15:58.890 --> 00:16:01.650
going to phase out nuclear or keep it

00:16:01.650 --> 00:16:04.140
and expanded they started out 40 percent

00:16:04.140 --> 00:16:06.540
in favor of expanding nuclear but after

00:16:06.540 --> 00:16:08.040
several months and considering these

00:16:08.040 --> 00:16:10.320
issues they ended up voting 60 percent

00:16:10.320 --> 00:16:13.020
to expand nuclear a similar phenomena

00:16:13.020 --> 00:16:15.120
just happened last week in Arizona the

00:16:15.120 --> 00:16:17.100
voters had a ballot initiative that to

00:16:17.100 --> 00:16:19.200
vote on whether or not to continue with

00:16:19.200 --> 00:16:21.150
nuclear or to phase it out and try to

00:16:21.150 --> 00:16:23.220
replace it with natural gas and solar

00:16:23.220 --> 00:16:26.160
they ended up rejecting at 70 to 30 and

00:16:26.160 --> 00:16:28.500
even here in Europe we saw the

00:16:28.500 --> 00:16:30.150
Netherlands is that one of the first

00:16:30.150 --> 00:16:32.700
countries in recent memory to actually

00:16:32.700 --> 00:16:34.740
announce as they did last week that

00:16:34.740 --> 00:16:36.360
they're going to start to they're gonna

00:16:36.360 --> 00:16:37.890
start to increase their reliance on

00:16:37.890 --> 00:16:39.810
nuclear power in recognition that

00:16:39.810 --> 00:16:41.250
there's just no way they could generate

00:16:41.250 --> 00:16:43.110
significant amounts of energy enough

00:16:43.110 --> 00:16:44.970
from solar and wind to meet their

00:16:44.970 --> 00:16:47.370
climate targets I think it's natural

00:16:47.370 --> 00:16:49.560
that those of us that became very

00:16:49.560 --> 00:16:51.210
concerned about climate change such a

00:16:51.210 --> 00:16:53.310
big environmental issue would gravitate

00:16:53.310 --> 00:16:56.540
towards really romantic solutions like

00:16:56.540 --> 00:16:58.980
harmonizing human civilization with the

00:16:58.980 --> 00:17:01.140
natural world using renewable energies

00:17:01.140 --> 00:17:03.090
but I think it's also understandable

00:17:03.090 --> 00:17:05.849
that as the facts have come in that many

00:17:05.849 --> 00:17:07.650
of us have started to question our prior

00:17:07.650 --> 00:17:10.410
beliefs and change our minds for me the

00:17:10.410 --> 00:17:14.030
question now is now that we know that

00:17:14.030 --> 00:17:16.859
renewables can't save the planet are we

00:17:16.859 --> 00:17:18.660
going to keep letting them destroy it

00:17:18.660 --> 00:17:25.510
thank you very much