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Thank you very much

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When I was a boy, My parents sometimes

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would take me camping in California.

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We would camp in the beaches,

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in the forests, in the deserts.

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some people think that deserts are

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empty of life.

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But my parents taught me to see

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the wild life all around us,

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The hawks, the eagles, the tortoises.

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One time when we were staying up at camp,

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We found a baby scorpion with its sting around,

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And I remember thinking how cool it was

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that something could be both so cute

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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

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environmental campaigns.

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I got involved in hoping to save

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the state's last ancient redwood forest.

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And blocking a proposed radioactive waste

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repository set for the desert.

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And surely after I turned 30,

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I decided that I wanted to dedicate

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a significant amount of life to solving

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climate change.

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I was worried that global warming would

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end up destroying many of the natural

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environments that people had worked

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so hard to protect.

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I thought the technical solution were

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pretty straight forward,

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solar panels on every roof,

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electric cars in the drive way,

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that the main obstacles were political.

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And so I hoped to organize a coalition

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of the countries biggest labor unions

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and biggest environmental groups.

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Our proposal was for a 300 billion dollar

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in renewables.

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And the idea was not only we would prevent

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climate change but, we would also create

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millions of new jobs in a very fast

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growing high tech sector.

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Our efforts really paid off in 2007,

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when then presidential candidate

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Barack Obama embraced our vision.

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And between 2009 and 2015,

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the US invested a 150 billion dollars

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in renewables and other kinds of clean tac.

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But right away, we started to encounter

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some problems.

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So first of all, the electricity from

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solar roof tops in some costs about twice

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as much as the electricity from solar farms.

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And both solar farms and wind farms

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require a cover of pretty significant

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amount of land with

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solar panels and wind turbines,

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And also building very big transmission lines

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to bring all that electricity from the

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country side into the city.

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Both of those things were often very

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strongly resisted by local communities,

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as well as by conservation biologists who

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were concerned about the impacts on

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wild birds 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 is

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just the intermediacy of solar and wind.

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They only generate electricity about

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10 - 30 % of the time during most of the year

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But, Some of the solutions that were

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being proposed were to convert hydroelectric

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dams into gigantic batteries.

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The idea was that when the sun was shining

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and the wind was blowing, you would pump

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the water uphill, stored for later and

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then when you needed electricity you run

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it over the turbines.

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In terms of wild life, some of these

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problems just didn't seem like

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a significant concern.

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So, when I learned that house cats

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killed billions of birds every year.

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it put into perspective that hundreds of

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thousands of birds that are rather killed

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by wind turbines.

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Basically seemed to me at the time that

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most if not all of the problems of

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scaling up solar and wind could be solved

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through more technological innovation.

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But as the years went by, these problems

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persisted, and in many cases grew worse.

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So, California is a state that is really

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committed to renewable energy.

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But we 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 is just, you have to have a very

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particular kind of formation to build

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and do that.

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And even in those cases, it's quite

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expensive to make those conversions.

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Other challenges are just that, there is

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other uses for water like irrigation,

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And maybe this is the most significant

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problem is just that, In California,

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The water in our rivers and reservoirs

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is growing increasingly scarce and

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unreliable due to climate change.

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In term of the situation of reliability,

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As a consequence of it, we have 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 are just have been too much of it

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at times, or, We have been starting to

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pay out neighboring states as Arizona to

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take that solar electricity, The

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alternative is to suffer from blowouts of

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the grid.

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And in turns out that,

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when it comes to birds and cats,

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Cats don't kill eagles, Eagles kill cats.

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What cats kill are the small common

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sparrows and jays and robins,

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Birds that are not endangered and not at

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risk of going to extinct.

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What do kill eagles and another big birds

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like the skite, as well as owls, and condors.

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And other threatened endangered species

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are wind turbines.

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In fact, they are one of the most

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significant threats to those big birds

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species that we have.

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We just haven't been introducing the air

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space with many other objects like we have

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wind turbines over the last several years.

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And in terms of solar, you know,

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building a solar farm is not like building

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any other kind of farm, you have to clear

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the whole area of wild life.

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so, this is a picture of one third of

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one of the biggest solar farms in

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California called ivanpah.

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In order to build this, they had to clear

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the whole area of desert tortoises.

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literally, pulling desert tortoises and

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their babies out of borrows,

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putting them on the back of pickup trucks

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and transporting them to captivity where

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many of them ended up dying.

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And currently, the current estimates are

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that about 6 thousand birds are

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killed every year.

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Actually, catching on fire above the

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solar farms and bulging to their death.

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Over time, it gradually struck me that,

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there was really no amount of technological

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innovation that was gonna make the sun

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shine more regularly or wind blow more

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reliably.

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In fact, you could make solar panel

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cheaper, you can make wind turbines bigger

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But, sunlight and wind are just really

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dilute fuels, and in order to produce

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significant amount of electricity,

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you just have to cover a very large land

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mass with them.

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In other words, all of the major problems

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with renewables aren't technical,

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They are natural.

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Well, dealing with all of this unreliability

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and the big environmental impacts obviously

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comes that a pretty high economic cost.

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You know, we have been hearing a lot

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about how solar panels and wind turbines

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have come down in cost in recent years.

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But that cost has been significantly

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out waid by just the challenges of

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immigrating all of that unreliable power

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on to the grid.

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Just take fringe since what happened

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in California.

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At the period in which solar panels have

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come down in price very significantly

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and same with the wind.

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We have seen our electricity crisis go up

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5 times more than the rest of the country

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and it is not unique to us.

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You can see the same phenomenon

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happen in Germany.

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Which is really the world's leader in

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solar, wind and other renewable technologies

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their price has increased 50 percent

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during their big renewable energy push.

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Now,You might think.. well

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dealing with climate changes just gonna

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require that we all pay more for energy,

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That's what I used to think.

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But, consider the case of France,

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France actually gets twice as much if its

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electricity from clean zero emissions

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sources than does Germany.

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And yet, France pays half as much..

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almost half as much for its electricity.

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How can that be?

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We might have already anticipated the

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answer, France gets most of its electricity

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from nuclear power, That's 75 percent

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in total, and nuclear just ends up being

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a lot more reliable, generating power,

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24 hours a day, 7 days a week,

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for about 90% of the year.

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We see this phenomenon

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show up at global level.

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So, for example, there has been a natural

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experiment over the last 40 years,

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or even more than that.

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And in terms of the deployment of nuclear

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and the deployment of solar,

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You can see that, at a little bit higher

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cost, we got about half as much electricity

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from solar and wind than we

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did from nuclear.

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Well, What does all this

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mean for going forward.

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I think one of the most significant

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findings today is this one.

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Had Germany spend 580 billion dollars

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on nuclear instead of renewables?

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It would already be getting a 100% of its

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electricity from clean energy sources and

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all of its transportation energy.

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Now I think, you might be wondering and

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it is quite reasonable to ask,

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Is nuclear power safe?

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And what do you do with the waste?

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Well those are very reasonable questions,

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Turns out that there has been scientific

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studies of this going for over 40 years.

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This is just the most recent study that

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was done by the prestigious british

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medical journal and says find the nuclear

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power is the safest.

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It is easy to understand why, according

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to the world's health organization,

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About 7 million people die annually

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from air pollution and nuclear

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plants don't emit that.

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As a result, the climate scientist

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James Hansen looked out and he calculated

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that nuclear power has already saved

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almost 2 million lives today.

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Turns out that even wind energy is

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more deadly than nucleur.

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This is a photograph taken of two

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workers in the Netherlands.

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shortly before one of them fell to

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his death to avoid the fire.

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And the other one was engulfed in flames.

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Now, what about environmental inmpact?

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Well, I think a really easy way to think

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about it is that uranium fuel which is

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what we use to power nuclear plants

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is just really energy dense.

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About the same amount of uranium as this

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Rubik's cube can power all of the energy

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that you need in your entire life.

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As a consequence, you just don't need that

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much land in order to produce the

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significant amount of electricity.

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Here we 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.

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It takes 450 times more land to generate

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the same amount of electricity as

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it does from nuclear.

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You would need 17 more solar farms like

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ivanpah in order to generate the same

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output as diablo canyon and of course,

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it would then be unreliable.

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Well, what about the mining and the waste

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and the materials that you put?

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Well, this has been studied pretty closely

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as well and it just turns out that

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solar requires 17 times more materials

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than nuclear plants do.

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In the form of cement, glass, concrete,

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steel and that includes all the fuel used

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for those nuclear plants.

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The consequences that what comes out at

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the end, since that materials through put

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is just not a lot of waste from nuclear.

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All of the waste from the Swiss nuclear

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program fits into this room.

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Nuclear waste is actually the only waste

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from electricity production that safely

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contained and internalized.

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Every other way of making electricity emits

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the waste into the natural environment

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either as pollution or as material waste.

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We tend to think of solar panels as clean,

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but the truth is that there is no plan to

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deal with solar panels at the end of their

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20 or 25 year life.

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A lot of experts are very concerned that

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solar panels are just gonna be shipped to

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Poor countries in Africa or Asia with the

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rest of our electronic wastes frame to be

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disassembled often exposing people to

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really high levels of toxic elements

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including lead, cadmium and chromium.

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Elements that...

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Because these elements their toxicity

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never declines over time.

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I think we have an intuitive sense nuclear

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is a really powerful strong energy source

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and that sunlight is really dilute and

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diffuse and weak which is why you have to

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spread solar collectors and wind collectors

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over such a large amount of land.

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Maybe that's why nobody was surprised when

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in the recent science fiction remake of

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blade runner, the film opens a very dark

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dystopian scene where California deserts

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have been entirely paved with solar farms.

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All of which I think raises a really

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uncomfortable question.

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In the effort to try to save the climate,

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are we destroying the environment?

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Well, the interesting thing is that over

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the last several hundred years, human

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beings been actually trying to move away

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from what you considered matter- dense fuels

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towards energy- dense ones.

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That means really from wood towards coal,

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oil, natural gas and uranium.

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This is a phenomenon that has been going

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on for a long time.

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poor countries around the world are in the

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process and still are moving away from wood

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as their primary energies.

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And for the most part, this is a positive thing

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as you stop using wood as your major

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source of fuel.

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It allows the forest to grow back, and

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the wild life to return.

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As you stop burning wood in your home,

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you no longer need to breathe that toxic smoke

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And as you go from coal to natural gas

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and uranium as your main sources of energy

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it holds up the possibility of basically

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eliminating air pollution all together.

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There is just this problem with nuclear it

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has been very popular to move from dirtier

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to cleaner energy sources from energy

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diffuse to energy dense sources.

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Nuclear is just really unpopular for a

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bunch of historical reasons.

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and as a consequence, in the past I

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and I think of a lot of others have sort

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of said well, in order to deal with

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climate change, we are just gonna need

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all of the different kinds of clean energy

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that we have.

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the problem is that is just turns out not

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to be true, you remember I discussed

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France a little bit ago, France gets most

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of its electricity from nuclear.

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if France were to try the significantly

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scale of solar and wind, it would also

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have to significantly reduce how much

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electricity it gets from nuclear.

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that's because an order to handle the huge

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very ability of solar and wind on the grid

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they would need to burn more natural gas.

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think of it this way, it is just really

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hard to ramp up and down a nuclear plant

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they were 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, cause without saying that

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oil and gas companies understand this

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pretty well which is why we have seen them

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invest millions of dollars in recent years

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in promoting solar and wind.