Our modern life is built on energy

we use it to heat to cool 
to light up our cities

you can powers are cars 
and flies are planes.

It fills our stores and keeps us switched 
on and plugged-in in the

average home in America in 1980.

There were 3 electronic devices.

Today,

there are over 25.

But most of that energy comes 
from burning coal,

oil and gas.

I don't think people understand when 
they flipped the light switch

were that energy comes from.

Is there a better way.

We need a miracle in energy technology.

Around the globe.

There was a race on to find a solution.

Tapping the power of the sun this 
tablespoon of fuel is going to

change the world.

We need to innovate and we need to 
innovate faster and in the wake

of Japan's tsunami re-examining nuclear.

Nuclear keeps looking pretty good,

even with the Fukushima might.

Kent technology help us fuel our future.

The current problem is actually 
easily solved.

And are we ready for it.

Everybody wants it somewhere other 
than their own backyard.

Guess what.

If you don't,

solve the problem,

your backyard isn't going 
look the same anyway.

Most programs about climate 
change start on a noted.

With images like this.

But this is a program about fixing.

So it starts in a place where it is 
hard to imagine that there are

any problems at all.

Sir Richard Branson's private 
Caribbean island.

And I first saw it this island.

I've never seen a more beautiful 
jewel in my life and completely

fell in love with it.

The challenge was to make sure 
that you actually enhance the

beauty rather than destroy it.

Branson.

The airline mogul has even upgraded 
his little Caribbean jewel

with some pretty spectacular flyers.

About a hundred years ago.

I think the last from India got 
eaten so with embarked on a

program of reintroducing 
them to the islands.

The thing I think the island is a 
more perfect island today than

it was before we arrived and I think 
you know that's what we've

got to try to do with the world.

But fixing the world is an easy 
even for billionaires in fact

Branson's love of nature has created 
a big personal dilemma.

He's become super rich well bringing 
stylish air travel to the

masses.

And yet he is also worried 
about climate change.

Those 2 passions are like the oil 
it takes to run his planes.

And water.

They do not mix.

Branson's dilemma while a bit 
more high-flying than most.

Is ultimately the same that we all face.

How can we get the energy our world 
needs in a way that want

threatening.

Climate change is one of the 
greatest threats relevant.

Branson solution is to use 
his entrepreneurial must.

And profits to attack climate change 
an idea inspired by another

famous brand Winston Churchill.

The threat of carbon could be worse 
than you know who won World

War II pretty careless if that's the case.

Churchill would get a warm set up 
he would rally industry he'd

rally the troops and try 
to be carbon the enemy.

And so we set up the top.

Branson is not alone.

Right now in laboratories 
around the globe.

There is a race on to find a solution.

The outcome is uncertain.

But ultimately,

the question is can technology 
save us from climate change.

There is no better place to start 
than deep in this West Virginia

coal mine.

Which generates half of all US electricity 
tells a story millions

of years old.

35 million years ago Earth's atmosphere 
was awash in carbon

dioxide.

But this is what look like.

This.

Alligators and South Dakota.

Palm trees in the Rocky Mountains.

And instead of being covered by ice 
they were forecasts in an art

. Over millions of years those trees 
pulled the carbon out of the

air to grow and when they died.

Much of that carbon got 
buried underground.

The same process created the coal 
we see here in West Virginia.

Cole is up to 86% car.

Yes.

A gallon of gasoline and other fossil 
fuel represents 100 tons of

ancient plans.

That's why gas,

coal and oil are called fossil fuels.

With the advent of the industrial 
age that carbon rich coal and

oil was dug up and burned as fuel.

Burning anything releases car.

But carbon dense coal and 
oil release a lot.

That carbon long-buried combines 
with oxygen in the Earth's

atmosphere and acts like a blank.

This NASA map shows global temperatures 
rising over the last

center.

No one is sure precisely how much 
the temperature will rise or how

quickly.

But the atmosphere carbon predicted 
for the end of this century is

approaching the level from 
35 million years ago.

When those alligators 
swam in South Dakota.

The task ahead is to cut carbon emissions.

And that is exactly what Steven put 
cholera has figured out how to

do.

The caller is an environmental biologist 
at Princeton University

and a serious would worker.

He has used both skills to demonstrate 
how we can solve our carbon

problem he calls it the wedge theory.

It's easy to say all the energy 
problem is so big that we can't

possibly build enough wind 
turbines to solve it.

We can't possibly do enough 
conservation to solve it.

So you break the problem 
into pieces and say,

what are the technological 
options across the board,

that we have to throw at it.

But says the problem can 
be easily visualize.

This is the amount of emissions 
that humanity puts out annually

its carbon emissions greenhouse 
gas emissions,

and this is,

and what happened for the first 10,000 
years since the end of the

last Ice Age people admitted almost 
nothing the Liberal cleared

albeit associated with funding.

But then the industrial revolution 
happened an emissions started

increase because of the burning 
of coal and oil.

And then in the natural gas,

but it increased and increased 
increased and they're still

increase.

So instead of allowing them to climb.

We've got a freeze them to this triangle 
here is the size of the

problem,

it's the gap between what we were 
gonna do and what we must do.

Risks.

The caller says this triangle 
represents the challenge.

Asked to do.

It is the carbon emissions that 
we must somehow keep out of the

atmosphere.

To help make this easier to understand 
and more fun Ocala decided

to turn it into a game literally one,

Chris.

At home,

and my kids were fight an inside-outside 
and I was like that's

gonna go outside to build something.

He used his working skills 
to build the game.

Here's how it works.

He turn the area that is the 
problem into a triangle.

This represents the total amount 
of carbon day we must avoid

putting into the atmosphere 
in the next 50 years.

The ideal target is controversial 
but Karla calculated it was 7

billion tons per year.

He divided that up into one 
billion ton section.

He made wooden wedges that represent 
technologies that could fill

in their Tri hang.

So it is there own technology 
big enough to do a 7th of the

problem and he has he was 
high on the whole,

there were 15 already in the marketplace 
at an industrial scale.

These are not pie in the sky things 
easy things you can go in

visit on a field trip.

Most of the 15 wedges can be grouped 
into 4 simple categories.

This green,

which represents the easiest 
and cheapest efficiency.

Like increasing the fuel mileage 
of all cars from 30 to 60 miles

per gallon.

This yellow which represents tripling 
the number of nuclear power

plants over 50 years.

This blue which represents cleaning 
coal plants by burying their

carbon emissions.

And this red,

which represents the sun harnessing 
its power with solar panels or

wind turbines.

This thing has 2 different wages 
per in his Princeton colleague

Robert cycle though did the complicated 
analysis behind this

simple game to prove that 
it could be done.

The way you play the game to feel 
the triangle with 7 of the 15

available technological wedges and 
create your own solution to the

climate crisis.

Some people might use more solar energy.

Good evening.

Others more efficiency savings.

I'm got nominate a wedge.

Efficient and I think efficiency 
one wedges modest and self

important more of these efficiency wedges.

The point is that there are 
many possible solutions.

It all depends on our choices.

Drawing the blueprint for a solution 
to this problem is deeply

challenging to help Nova has assembled 
the panel of experts.

Leaders from business academia 
and government,

who are all trying to find solutions.

And technology said this.

Yes you can.

And it should it must and that's to say,

it must save.

Technology save us from climate change 
absolutely very convinced

that can and in fact beyond that 
what I would says it's an

incredible opportunity for us to 
create more kinds of new things,

no.

We can do things that we 
can't dream alive today.

We can envision what it will look 
like a hundred years from now.

I think the carbon problem 
is actually easily solved:

what's hard is that we need 
to make a lot of change.

You know we more last halved coming 
forward at this to recreate a

green version of the revolution.

It's taken us under 50 years.

There are people right now.

If you go to work every day and 
they can say to themselves.

You know if I got lucky.

Today I will arguably saved the 
world and become not just the

richest person in it.

But the richest person ever.

Climate change solutions will create 
more wealth than any other

sector over the next decade.

Richard Branson knows the power 
of profits to spark innovation.

So he has started a$25

million contest for the best idea 
to reduce carbon levels.

Is there some way that some of that 
extra CO2 might be scavenge

officially out of the atmosphere.

One of the people working to do that 
and hoping that Branson might

make his Christmas come a bit early 
is Klaus if physicist at

Columbia University.

Wagner's idea is brilliantly simple 
why not develop technologies

that work just like trees removing 
the carbon pollution that our

cars and Branson's planes make.

Everybody knows it can be done every 
submarine has to pull that

CO2 out of the people.

Preterm side.

Carbon capture is not a new idea.

The navy has relied on it for decades 
deep underwater submarine

exhale carbon dioxide with every breath.

In such a small enclosed space 
that CO2 builds up and becomes

talks.

In every submarine CO2 must be 
removed from the air for the

sailors to survive.

That's done with some pretty basic 
chemistry using a machine

called a scrap.

The carbon in a carbon dioxide molecule 
has a slightly positive

charge.

If the chemical filter inside the 
scrub has a special negative

charge the carbon dioxide will 
be drawn would like a magnet.

In his lab Wagner found a resin based 
material that acts just like

this submarine scrub attracting 
carbon dioxide to stick to it.

The next challenge was how to capture 
carbon naturally in the

breeze without using energy.

Well,

you know,

really.

Wagner experimented with various 
shapes from Richard flat panels.

GE.

2 material draped like a flag.

He discovered that cutting the material 
into very thin strips.

And putting them along a liar 
would be most effective

the result a man made carbon collector 
highly engineered at one of

America's top universities 
that looks in the end,

like a branch of a Christmas tree.

These 2 branches look very much alike 
because they finally trying

to do more or less the same thing 
but these materials to know

about a thousand times better at 
collecting CO2 from the air,

then a natural tree.

Wagner's vision is that one day there 
would be a fleet of carbon

needing vehicles each about the size 
of an 18-wheeler sucking up

the unwanted carbon from Richard 
Branson's planes.

Or those New York City Cats.

Our modern world has an insatiable 
appetite for energy.

It is tight economic growth 
and prosperity.

Hardly fossil fuels feed 
85% of that demand.

Fossil fuels are still used and we 
are taking the CO2 and capture

it and store it safely and permanently.

Is really critical.

Not just for calls 50% electricity 
comes from coal in the US but

80% of electricity in China 
comes from coal.

Jim Rogers,

the CEO of one of America's largest 
electric utilities says

figuring out how to clean up coal 
must be part of the solution.

The issue for Congress can we clean it up.

That is the technology challenge we have,

because you just can't wake up and 
tomorrow morning and saying no

more coal.

Rogers says we need to be finding 
ways to capture and store carbon

. Like Wagner's doing in his lab.

But on a very large scale we need 
to do it with a sense of urgency

. We're not moving faster.

The process of capturing carbon 
in burying it is happening on a

massive scale in a place where people 
don't take taxis they take.

The Sahara desert.

Algeria.

Location so remote and difficult 
to get through.

We had to fly there on British 
Petroleum chartered flight.

In Salah was once an important trait 
lake in the middle of the

Sahara desert.

It may be an important link 
to our energy future.

North Africa is rich in natural gas.

At in that gas which might heat your home.

Comes out of the ground with up 
to 10% carbon dioxide mixed in.

And in purity that would make your 
stove burned less efficiently.

So the carbon dioxide is scrubbed 
out like in a submarine.

Usually that carbon dioxide is just 
released into the atmosphere.

But here at it is pressurized and 
pumped through sewage pipes that

stretch across the desert.

5 miles away the gas makes 
an unexpected turn.

Here at the K B 5-o 2 site the Algerian 
national gas company and

BP are put in the car and outside 
right back where they found

underground.

Geologist John Mitchell E is checking 
up on the gas pressure.

This is the inject a wellhead for 
KB fight both too in this pipe

is the carbon dioxide that's been 
compressed the production

facility.

The noise you hear is the flow of gas.

The pressurized carbon outside is 
then forced more than a mile.

Where it is pushed into a 
porous rock formation.

And effectively trapped back underground.

That facility takes of power plants were.

In the wedges game capturing the 
CO2 like this from 1600 natural

gas plants would provide one wedge 
or one 7th of the needed

solution.

But doing this is expensive and 
would increase the price.

So at present In Salah is one of 
only 4 such facilities in the

world.

Operating at a large scale.

There are more of these right now 
because there's no commercial

reason to do them.

Price of fossil fuel reflected the 
damage that was caused by the

greenhouse gases that office and there 
would be an economic reason

to store the carbon dioxide below ground.

Given that the gases invisible.

How do they know it is actually 
staying underground.

Satellite measurements reveal the 
surface of the earth at the site

. We can calculate how much movement 
there is in the Earth's

surface under way in Baghdad now 
cancellations all tight monetary

motion.

Fans of the Sahara are stretched up 
to 12 millimeters to make room

for the carbon dioxide injected inside.

So if carbon dioxide from a single 
natural gas plant can literally

move the surface of the earth.

What is the impact of all of the 
carbon are modern life creates.

We produce 9 billion tons 
of carbon a year.

A number,

so hard to that,

we decided to break it down 
into something more manage.

What is your contribution 
to climate change.

When you look around your home and 
there are some obvious places

where we use live energy and for 
most people during not occur

again.

Dan Kaufman,

of the University of California 
at Berkeley has tried to figure

out the carbon footprint 
of the average America.

Heating our homes.

Driving our cars.

Growing and shipping our food.

We know how much carbon associated 
with each year of energy we use

in our house.

Adding those things up basic counting.

But it will depend on obvious.

Developed a Web site where you can 
calculate your carbon footprint

. But we wanted to make 
it a bit more graphic.

So we asked him to imagine it as 
a solid white garden compost

which is mostly carbon anyway.

One pound of carbon limited as an 
invisible gas can be represented

as a pound of this rich black dirt.

20 mile trip to the store and back.

That's about 6 pounds of carbon.

One short trip.

The 6 pounds.

But in one year.

The average American drives 
about 10,000 miles.

This is the average American driver 
through the year 2 tons of car

. All those car trips 2 tons.

And all that driving flying buying 
and heating we do in a year.

6 times.

I show you the average family's carbon 
footprint I've invited like

kids to join.

And this is the average American 
families Norfolk just one here.

Your average families 14 tons of 
carbon waste combines in the

atmosphere with oxygen to create 
50 tons of carbon dioxide gas.

That gas floating in the atmosphere 
sunlight enter to warm earth.

But it blocks.

Much of the heat from escaping.

It's like an invisible cortex 
blanket warm you know are.

So how can we get energy with the 
least amount of carbon emissions

. Mean.

The first stop on everyone's 
green energy list the sun.

Solar power is the poster child for 
transforming our energy system

. There's huge potential.

If you look at the numbers,

the amount of solar energy reaching 
the surface of the is 100,000

terror laws.

The amount of energy that civilization 
is using for all of its

purposes today 17 or 18 Caroline's.

This makes solar energy 
enormously attractive.

You know we need a few square meters 
of solar panels for every

person in the world they actually 
generate all the energy will be

and we don't do that is it's still 
too expensive solar panels cost

a lot of money.

The question is can we make 
photovoltaic stitching.

And if.

Making solar power cheaply 
is now the goal.

And with billions at stake.

There is a race on to do.

There is no better place to see 
the intensity of that race then

here in Chai.

China leads the world in the manufacture 
of solar panels and it's

not just because of cheap labor,

a big part of it is down of this 
man Jung wrong she the CEO of

suntan and a remarkable 
rags to riches story.

Well safety the fortune overnight,

but I never believed that and 
he's not sure for anybody.

Yes,

he's not sure unless you 
have the rich a father,

you know me,

that's different,

you know.

She's family was far from rich.

In fact,

his father was so poor that she 
was put up for adoption.

Now he's known as the Sun King and 
is ranked among the richest men

in the world.

I'm a very aggressive personality.

So when I saw as opportunity 
during I've just.

Before hitting the jackpot,

she was a solar scientist in 
Australia but felt the best.

Way to get solar out to the world 
was not through publishing

papers but through combining 
science with this.

The initial reaction from his university 
colleague and teacher

Stewart went and was not encouraging.

Well,

to be honest when he first mentioned 
to me his idea why didn't

actually think it was a good idea,

and I told you so.

Today,

she's former teacher is his 
chief technology officer.

Amazing.

Instead of perfecting technology 
in the lab,

they are using their science 
to cut the cost of solar.

The basic science of photovoltaic 
technology is pretty

straightforward.

And has been around since the 1950s.

Photo means light.

Pictures.

And so,

when a photon of light.

It's a silicon atom its 
energy Knox an electron

which is then directed 
through the silicon.

To the thin wires on this

that stream of electrons is 
electricity back in power.

Anything from your toaster to your TV.

During the manufacturing process 
metal lines that workers wires

are put on the surface of the silly.

The problem is these metal lines 
cannot be made very narrow that

shines quite a bit of the 
solar cell surface.

One way when I mean she working 
to improve their cells is by

making the wires thinner 
and closer together.

So the electrons don't 
have to travel so far.

Look at the solar still here on 
my left Castaneda lines were

locked place up.

The new design increases efficiency 
which drives down the costs

its innovations like these 
that has led she.

The dominant world production in 
2001 it would take Sun Tech a

whole year to produce what Mao rolls 
out of the factory in 2 days

that.

Kind of growth can be seen across China,

where they are adding the equivalent 
of a city the size of Chicago

every 3 months.

Nowhere is the enthusiasm for solar 
power more celebrated than

into June,

3 hours south of Beijing.

And the improvement

and at night.

The city is alike.

With me on that is powered by batteries 
that charged in the day by

an enormous array of solar panels.

The man behind this showcase city 
is how long me another of

China's solar millionaires.

Sort of me.

It is my dream of a new kind of 
landscape although lifestyle.

Now 4 main wants to spread his 
wealth and passion for solar.

Among the England has been possessed 
by this vision to design a

community which in this case I think 
it was 88% solar reliant.

Orville shell the China scholar 
has been to do here.

Well,

it may be flashy he says it's 
emblematic of China's growing

prosperity.

You know China today,

you see the most amazing 
thing springing up

in some sense,

they're very impressive and involving 
allowed a very innovative

technology and their these 
weirdness other aspects of

but there is this extraordinary 
dynamic energy the sort of

bursting forth.

And it's not just China.

The energy problem is seen 
as an opportunity.

All over the world.

China is moving very aggressively.

India's biggest move in this western 
Europe is going to move on.

This even some oil exporting 
countries OPEC countries are

beginning to realize that you need 
to develop cleaner energy

sources.

Since coming to the Department of 
Energy Secretary Steven Chu has

increased spending on developing 
clean energy bike$40

billion.

And.

We need technologies solar power 
wind power carbon capture who's

gonna supply the world with 
those technologies.

I would hope it's you know it's not.

The US once was enthusiastic about solar.

At the height of the oil 
crisis in the 1970s.

By the end of this century.

I want our nation to derive 20% of 
all the energy we use from the

sun.

To great fanfare President Jimmy 
Carter even installed solar

heaters on the roof of the White House.

This is accustomed to stock specific risk.

But a few years later after oil prices 
drop Ronald Reagan took the

panel's down.

Today,

America is trying to get back 
into the solar gain.

I mean,

the bottom line is we roughly what 
to double the amount of Queen.

The goal for Secretary Chu is 
to double the amount of non

carbon-emitting energy in the US by 
2035 comeback here and a large

chunk of that this solar.

Along comes a need and we need clear,

this is a problem that science can 
solve that opportunity issue.

The idea is to invest in science 
that will pay off in practical

solutions.

One of the major challenges we 
face is transportation which

accounts for about a 3rd 
of total energy use.

There are several different approaches 
including electric cars.

Transport fuels represent 
a special problem.

The most likely avenue they're currently 
in the people pursuing

biofuels.

Yes.

Biofuels or form of solar because 
they come from plants which

capture the sun's energy to grow.

One promising approach is being developed 
at the joint bioenergy

Institute in Emeryville,

California.

Where Jake easily is using plant 
biology to come up with the fuel

of the future that will work 
with our current system.

We've got about$3

trillion worth of transportation 
infrastructure in this country

with the gas stations pipelines 
the refineries

automobiles trains planes.

We don't have the money to repay all.

He's idea is to exploit the 
way plants make food.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the air.

And use that carbon and oxygen 
and hydrogen from water,

plus the sun's energy to make nutrients 
in the form of a simple

sugar.

Ling is working to put that 
Sugar to use for our.

One way to think about how he's doing 
that is he is super charging

an age old process.

The basic recipe of beer is to take 
borrowing a plant that is rich

in those stored sugars 
and mix it with yeast.

Yeast is a microbe that feeds on those 
plant sugars and turns them

into alcohol that process 
is called fermentation.

Lars Larson the brew master explains.

This is instrumental to 
the brewing processed,

it is the yeast that turns the sugar 
render Halka hole and create

a beard was with us away in every 
animal's life cycle or something

. Those in the front something comes 
out the back alcohol to come

out the back so these to

but instead of alcohol that you drink.

Keesler wants to make diesel fuel 
by genetically altering the east

. We have an enormous amount of power 
to change biology manipulate

biology.

Instead of Barley the plant.

He uses his switch grass,

it's an agricultural waste material 
but it sugars work easy to

access.

We have to go to great lengths to 
extract the and turn them into

this.

Then he feeds the sugar to genetically 
altered yeast like at the

brewery but what comes out of 
the back side of this yeast.

You can put directly into 
your car or your plane.

This is not your grandmother's east 
this is has been souped up to

produce an advanced biofuel you 
all that is nearly identical to

what we had today.

You know.

There is just one care.

If Richard Branson came here today,

I could give him a tablespoon of 
jet fuel that we've made here in

the laboratory.

That tablespoon would cost about$100,000

. If if if if

well I would Al Absi love 
to meet up with 5th.

It's just fantastic to have all 
these people trying to come up

with the big breakthroughs.

I think the breakthroughs will happen 
it needs money resources

time and energy.

Great,

great people to put their minds.

I firmly believe that technology 
can save us from climate change,

but the changes that we're talking 
about our heroic in scale,

they're not without precedent.

But they are still heroic in scale.

One challenge is to figure out which 
advances in the laboratory

could be increased to an industrial scale.

Not all promising science is practical.

But in the wedges game there is 
an immediate way to reduce the

size of the problem.

The potential is huge and 
it's called efficiency.

The very word efficiency says you 
get the same bang for a less

buck.

Efficiency is a car that gets 
better MP chief in them.

The we in the house,

said we keep,

and so you had the same award inside 
houses with less natural gas

currently on that.

Not using energy in the first place 
is the easiest way to earn a

wedge.

It's like the old Benjamin Franklin 
quote a penny saved is a penny

. Ben Franklin himself would be proud 
of what is going on here at

the national archives in Washington DC.

The archives is all about saving 
America's most important

documents like the US Constitution,

which Franklin signing.

But it paid very little attention 
to saving energy.

Today,

that's all changed.

James Garvin was once just 
the buildings engineered,

but now he's also become a detective

using a thermal imaging camera Garvin 
is tracking down an urgent

leaks.

We're looking for leaks to see areas 
where we're losing a lot of

the Kerry.

Red means hot which is wasted energy.

Obviously and the problems start 
right at the front door.

We don't need a special camera 
to see problems here.

You can feel the heat through 
the 3 quarter inch.

Hemscott.

That escaping in heat may help 
this guy outside state.

But the point is to keep all the 
heat inside the building so the

archives was pulled in efficiency 
experts to reduce its carbon

foot.

They installed new efficient radiators.

And lights that are 20% brighter 
yet use a 3rd less energy and

motion sensors to shut them 
off when employees don't.

But the biggest ticket items were 
installing efficient boilers

left and plugging in those leaky gas.

The archives is on track to reduce 
its emissions by more than

1,000 tons of carbon a year.

That reduction doesn't just show 
up and garments camera is good

news,

blue,

it's also save in the archives,

a lot of green.

Its energy bill will be reduced by$1.2

million every year which will pay 
for the upgrade in only 5 years

. Well you know.

Everybody loves efficiency,

efficiency saves you money 
it doesn't cost you money.

Efficiency savings aren't just limited 
to grand old government

built.

About a quarter of the energy an 
average American uses is at home

. Increasing home efficiency can 
save a 3rd on your energy bill.

And we know our cars can go 
farther on a gallon of gas.

They.

If you took all the cars that are 
going to exist in the world 50

years from now and made them 
have 60 miles per gallon.

Instead,

a 30 miles per gallon that creates 
a wedge it affects one billion

metric tons of carbon atoms.

That would have been emitted to 
the atmosphere while still

providing us with the trap we want.

That won't change is the equivalent 
of replacing 800 coal plants.

And that's just the beginning of 
what efficiency improvements can

do.

In the 1970s energy efficiency,

got a lot of attention,

but for many it was symbolic of a 
counter cultural lifestyle and

making uncomfortable sacrifices.

But,

as Stewart Brand,

a leader of the environmental 
movement back then points out

efficiency changes in California 
have kept energy use the same

while still allowing the 
economy to double.

Brand became famous for writing the 
whole earth catalog a resource

guide for a sustainable lifestyle.

Today,

he says.

It's important to develop a whole 
new catalog of tools to fight

climate change.

From harnessing wave energy.

To use the Earth's geothermal heat.

I think it's encouraging to hear 
that were not there and

everything on one particular thing 
is somehow win is gonna save us

with a somehow nuclear is gonna 
save us there is such a full

spectrum problem is going to take 
a full spectrum set of solutions

. Brand has surprised many by his 
willingness to consider this

full spectrum.

In the 1970s he fought nuclear energy.

Today he has done an about face the 
shift was starting to really

take climate change seriously enough 
to challenge by assumption

that I knew enough about nuclear.

But the senior army in Fukushima,

Japan has revived old fears 
about nuclear energy.

When this tsunami struck this 1970s 
style reactor was flooded and

it's diesel generators didn't work,

causing the cooling system to fail.

That led to releases of radiation.

Does this disaster change brands mind.

And as in Fukushima change my support.

I think a question we're asking 
now is comparing the risks of

nuclear to the risks of climate 
change and we do that risk

analysis nuclear keeps 
looking pretty good,

even with Fukushima my.

According to the game,

replacing 800 coal plants with nuclear 
power would solve one wedge

of the needed carbon solution but 
can nuclear be made safer.

Nuclear power plants require massive 
cooling systems to keep the

reactor core say.

In the old style plants like those 
in Japan that was done with a

vast array of pipes valves and back upon.

It was the failure of these backup 
systems that led to the nuclear

crisis.

The latest designs for reactors 
like this Westinghouse AP 1,000

are much simpler.

An example was the large tank of 
cooling water that sits right on

top so that gravity will do the work 
in the event of an emergency

. This tankers a 3 day supply of 
cooling water and requires no

electricity.

This next generation of nuclear 
plant is already in production.

But to see it.

We have to go back to China because 
no nuclear plant has been

built in the US since the 1970s.

Kate Jackson,

chief technology officer for Westinghouse 
says one key benefit of

the 81,000 is that it is bringing 
standardized designs.

Sterilization is an old concept 
just never been applied to the

nuclear industry before.

The old nuclear plants were custom 
built with more moving parts to

go wrong

now.

Each plant is built in standardized 
modules like a giant Lego set

. The majority are attached about 
their and the high things in

staff they've been fresher 
testing it's right again.

There are a total of 350 modules 
for each power station.

Like here in san 4 hours outside 
of Shanghai where Kate Jackson

has come to see the progress.

It's wonderful because you get to 
see these building blocks being

moved and put into place.

Piece by piece.

The nuclear power station take shape.

Stepping inside Jackson finds the reactor.

This is where the nuclear reaction 
will generate the heat that

drives the electrical generator.

Enough power for more 
than a million homes.

The plant and men should come on 
line in nearly half the usual

time only 4 years.

Over the next 30 years.

China plans to build 400 nuclear reactors.

Designs like the AP 1,000 could 
address some of the safety

concerns that Japan's crisis exposed,

but there are still many old style 
plans in operation 23 in the US

alone and all nuclear plants suffer 
from the long-standing problem

of how to dispose of their nuclear waste

Nathan Miller vault thinks these 
problems can be overcome.

Nuclear is one of the carbon free 
emission technologies that

absolutely works at scale today.

In Seattle fault former chief technology 
officer of Microsoft is

teaming up with his old friend Bill 
Gates to work on designing a

future generation of nuclear technology 
called Terra power.

We need a miracle in energy technology.

Think we need a miracle sounds extreme 
but in fact miracles on the

mainland are flat.

The entire technology industry is about.

The miracles revolt predicts our 
new designs that would more

safely and efficiently you 
spent nuclear fuel,

which is creating the waste problem today.

He looks to technology not just 
provide energy for us,

but to satisfy the aspirations for 
growth in the rest of the world

. The energy task for the 21st century 
is how can we get every

citizen the earth the kind of 
energy use as you find in the

developed world.

It is a question of fairness and equity.

Some people say we in the United 
States lot Wes and perhaps we

ought to,

I don't know way to force us to use less.

They and the Chinese art and not 
use as much as we use now but

they're headed there.

I don't know how you start for them.

The demand for energy indeed 
appears on stock.

Energy demand is predicted to triple 
by the end of the century.

Which means there is probably a need 
for all the solutions science

can come up with.

People always are looking for the 
technological magic bullet,

though,

the one thing that if we just 
get it right will say.

There probably is no silver bullet,

there may be a silver shotgun in 
the sense of a white variety

advances,

which together will solve 
a large part of this.

One big nuclear power plant is the 
same as 3,000 big wind turbines

and the about 50 square mile.

The question is which do you want.

And the answer is everybody wanted 
somewhere other than their own

backyard.

Well guess what,

if you don't,

solve the problem,

your backyard isn't gonna 
look the same anyway.

And the energy problem is a moving target.

Every day as demand grows and carbon 
accumulates in the atmosphere

, the problem increases.

This is the problem,

in which procrastination Kerry's 
really serious penalties.

America has been down the past 
of procrastination before.

Perhaps one of the most poignant places 
to see the results of that

is back in China.

At a town pulled out of poverty 
by solar manufacturing.

At the Joe Silva received.

There is a popular display.

One of the solar panels that Jimmy 
Carter installed on the White

House back in 1979.

This solar heater.

You to be a curiosity.

The museum piece,

an example of a road not taken.

Well,

I can be just a small part of 
one of the greatest and most

exciting adventures ever undertaken 
by the American Pete.

30 years later,

the need to venture into new forms 
of energy is even greater.

The challenge is huge.

The potential consequences 
of an action are bigger.

Necessities mother of all inventions,

we got the biggest necessity and it's 
going to be your mother many

encourage.

This Nova program is available on 
DVD sugar PBS.org or call 100