1
00:00:00,825 --> 00:00:02,464
Have you heard the news?

2
00:00:02,488 --> 00:00:05,438
We're in a clean energy revolution.

3
00:00:05,462 --> 00:00:07,452
And where I live in Berkeley, California,

4
00:00:07,476 --> 00:00:11,760
it seems like every day I see a new roof
with new solar panels going up,

5
00:00:11,784 --> 00:00:13,511
electric car in the driveway.

6
00:00:13,812 --> 00:00:17,027
Germany sometimes gets
half its power from solar,

7
00:00:17,051 --> 00:00:21,544
and India is now committed
to building 10 times more solar

8
00:00:21,568 --> 00:00:22,896
than we have in California,

9
00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:24,442
by the year 2022.

10
00:00:24,896 --> 00:00:27,246
Even nuclear seems to be
making a comeback.

11
00:00:27,874 --> 00:00:30,919
Bill Gates is in China
working with engineers,

12
00:00:30,943 --> 00:00:33,740
there's 40 different companies
that are working together

13
00:00:33,764 --> 00:00:37,089
to try to race to build the first
reactor that runs on waste,

14
00:00:37,113 --> 00:00:38,350
that can't melt down

15
00:00:38,374 --> 00:00:39,692
and is cheaper than coal.

16
00:00:40,492 --> 00:00:42,797
And so you might start to ask:

17
00:00:43,430 --> 00:00:45,227
Is this whole global warming problem

18
00:00:45,251 --> 00:00:48,201
going to be a lot easier to solve
than anybody imagined?

19
00:00:48,504 --> 00:00:50,455
That was the question we wanted to know,

20
00:00:50,479 --> 00:00:53,721
so my colleagues and I decided
to take a deep dive into the data.

21
00:00:53,745 --> 00:00:55,772
We were a little skeptical of some parts

22
00:00:55,796 --> 00:00:57,803
of the clean energy revolution story,

23
00:00:57,827 --> 00:01:00,587
but what we found really surprised us.

24
00:01:00,611 --> 00:01:04,521
The first thing is that clean
energy has been increasing.

25
00:01:04,545 --> 00:01:08,666
This is electricity from clean energy
sources over the last 20 years.

26
00:01:09,023 --> 00:01:12,741
But when you look at
the percentage of global electricity

27
00:01:12,765 --> 00:01:14,104
from clean energy sources,

28
00:01:14,128 --> 00:01:18,694
it's actually been in decline
from 36 percent to 31 percent.

29
00:01:18,718 --> 00:01:20,900
And if you care about climate change,

30
00:01:20,924 --> 00:01:23,070
you've got to go in the opposite direction

31
00:01:23,094 --> 00:01:26,644
to 100 percent of our electricity
from clean energy sources,

32
00:01:26,668 --> 00:01:28,266
as quickly as possible.

33
00:01:28,290 --> 00:01:29,447
Now, you might wonder,

34
00:01:29,471 --> 00:01:33,340
"Come on, how much could five percentage
points of global electricity be?"

35
00:01:33,364 --> 00:01:35,131
Well, it turns out to be quite a bit.

36
00:01:35,155 --> 00:01:38,298
It's the equivalent of 60 nuclear plants

37
00:01:38,322 --> 00:01:41,933
the size of Diablo Canyon,
California's last nuclear plant,

38
00:01:41,957 --> 00:01:45,626
or 900 solar farms the size of Topaz,

39
00:01:45,650 --> 00:01:48,179
which is one of the biggest
solar farms in the world,

40
00:01:48,203 --> 00:01:50,829
and certainly our biggest in California.

41
00:01:51,587 --> 00:01:54,831
A big part of this is simply
that fossil fuels are increasing

42
00:01:54,855 --> 00:01:56,108
faster than clean energy.

43
00:01:56,132 --> 00:01:57,371
And that's understandable.

44
00:01:57,395 --> 00:01:59,110
There's just a lot of poor countries

45
00:01:59,134 --> 00:02:01,587
that are still using wood
and dung and charcoal

46
00:02:01,611 --> 00:02:03,196
as their main source of energy,

47
00:02:03,220 --> 00:02:04,671
and they need modern fuels.

48
00:02:04,695 --> 00:02:06,644
But there's something else going on,

49
00:02:06,668 --> 00:02:10,723
which is that one of those clean energy
sources in particular

50
00:02:10,747 --> 00:02:14,155
has actually been on the decline
in absolute terms,

51
00:02:14,179 --> 00:02:15,680
not just relatively.

52
00:02:15,704 --> 00:02:16,918
And that's nuclear.

53
00:02:16,942 --> 00:02:20,591
You can see its generation
has declined seven percent

54
00:02:20,615 --> 00:02:22,452
over the last 10 years.

55
00:02:22,476 --> 00:02:25,084
Now, solar and wind have been
making huge strides,

56
00:02:25,108 --> 00:02:28,016
so you hear a lot of talk
about how it doesn't really matter,

57
00:02:28,040 --> 00:02:30,778
because solar and wind
is going to make up the difference.

58
00:02:30,802 --> 00:02:32,658
But the data says something different.

59
00:02:32,682 --> 00:02:35,727
When you combine all the electricity
from solar and wind,

60
00:02:35,751 --> 00:02:40,550
you see it actually barely makes up
half of the decline from nuclear.

61
00:02:41,758 --> 00:02:44,076
Let's take a closer look
in the United States.

62
00:02:44,100 --> 00:02:47,891
Over the last couple of years --
really 2013, 2014 --

63
00:02:47,915 --> 00:02:51,384
we prematurely retired
four nuclear power plants.

64
00:02:51,408 --> 00:02:54,207
They were almost entirely
replaced with fossil fuels,

65
00:02:54,231 --> 00:02:57,737
and so the consequence
was that we wiped out

66
00:02:57,761 --> 00:03:02,687
almost as much clean energy
electricity that we get from solar.

67
00:03:02,711 --> 00:03:05,732
And it's not unique to us.

68
00:03:06,113 --> 00:03:09,184
People think of California
as a clean energy and climate leader,

69
00:03:09,208 --> 00:03:11,216
but when we looked at the data,

70
00:03:11,240 --> 00:03:12,741
what we found is that, in fact,

71
00:03:12,765 --> 00:03:15,968
California reduced emissions more slowly
than the national average,

72
00:03:15,992 --> 00:03:17,835
between 2000 and 2015.

73
00:03:18,359 --> 00:03:19,594
What about Germany?

74
00:03:19,618 --> 00:03:21,651
They're doing a lot of clean energy.

75
00:03:21,675 --> 00:03:23,406
But when you look at the data,

76
00:03:23,430 --> 00:03:26,708
German emissions have actually
been going up since 2009,

77
00:03:26,732 --> 00:03:29,307
and there's really not anybody
who's going to tell you

78
00:03:29,331 --> 00:03:32,639
that they're going to meet
their climate commitments in 2020.

79
00:03:33,137 --> 00:03:34,889
The reason isn't hard to understand.

80
00:03:34,913 --> 00:03:38,216
Solar and wind provide power
about 10 to 20 percent of the time,

81
00:03:38,240 --> 00:03:40,288
which means that when
the sun's not shining,

82
00:03:40,312 --> 00:03:41,664
the wind's not blowing,

83
00:03:41,688 --> 00:03:43,839
you still need power for your hospitals,

84
00:03:43,863 --> 00:03:46,593
your homes, your cities, your factories.

85
00:03:46,617 --> 00:03:50,521
And while batteries have made
some really cool improvements lately,

86
00:03:50,545 --> 00:03:53,253
the truth is, they're just never
going to be as efficient

87
00:03:53,277 --> 00:03:54,476
as the electrical grid.

88
00:03:54,500 --> 00:03:57,627
Every time you put electricity
into a battery and take it out,

89
00:03:57,651 --> 00:04:00,907
you lose about 20 to 40
percent of the power.

90
00:04:01,470 --> 00:04:04,063
That's why when, in California,

91
00:04:04,087 --> 00:04:06,801
we try to deal with all the solar
we've brought online --

92
00:04:06,825 --> 00:04:09,589
we now get about 10 percent
of electricity from solar --

93
00:04:09,613 --> 00:04:12,255
when the sun goes down,
and people come home from work

94
00:04:12,279 --> 00:04:14,769
and turn on their air conditioners
and their TV sets,

95
00:04:14,793 --> 00:04:16,691
and every other appliance in the house,

96
00:04:16,715 --> 00:04:19,176
we need a lot of natural gas backup.

97
00:04:19,200 --> 00:04:20,365
So what we've been doing

98
00:04:20,389 --> 00:04:23,303
is stuffing a lot of natural gas
into the side of a mountain.

99
00:04:23,616 --> 00:04:25,865
And that worked pretty well for a while,

100
00:04:25,889 --> 00:04:28,880
but then late last year,
it sprung a leak.

101
00:04:28,904 --> 00:04:30,744
This is Aliso Canyon.

102
00:04:30,768 --> 00:04:33,782
So much methane gas was released,

103
00:04:33,806 --> 00:04:36,992
it was the equivalent of putting
half a million cars on the road.

104
00:04:37,016 --> 00:04:40,913
It basically blew through all
of our climate commitments for the year.

105
00:04:41,681 --> 00:04:43,005
Well, what about India?

106
00:04:43,029 --> 00:04:46,280
Sometimes you have to go places
to really get the right data,

107
00:04:46,304 --> 00:04:48,285
so we traveled to India a few months ago.

108
00:04:48,309 --> 00:04:51,440
We met with all the top officials --
solar, nuclear, the rest --

109
00:04:51,464 --> 00:04:53,005
and what they told us is,

110
00:04:53,029 --> 00:04:55,083
"We're actually having
more serious problems

111
00:04:55,107 --> 00:04:56,782
than both Germany and California.

112
00:04:56,806 --> 00:05:00,339
We don't have backup;
we don't have all the natural gas.

113
00:05:00,363 --> 00:05:02,895
And that's just the start of it.

114
00:05:02,919 --> 00:05:05,808
Say we want to get
to 100 gigawatts by 2022.

115
00:05:05,832 --> 00:05:07,784
But last year we did just five,

116
00:05:07,808 --> 00:05:09,846
and the year before that, we did five."

117
00:05:09,870 --> 00:05:12,746
So, let's just take
a closer look at nuclear.

118
00:05:12,770 --> 00:05:15,993
The United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change

119
00:05:16,017 --> 00:05:18,988
has looked at the carbon content
of all these different fuels,

120
00:05:19,012 --> 00:05:22,945
and nuclear comes out really low --
it's actually lower even than solar.

121
00:05:22,969 --> 00:05:26,864
And nuclear obviously
provides a lot of power --

122
00:05:26,888 --> 00:05:29,441
24 hours a day, seven days a week.

123
00:05:29,465 --> 00:05:33,399
During a year, a single plant can provide
power 92 percent of the time.

124
00:05:33,423 --> 00:05:35,995
What's interesting is that
when you look at countries

125
00:05:36,019 --> 00:05:38,561
that have deployed different
kinds of clean energies,

126
00:05:38,585 --> 00:05:40,485
there's only a few that have done so

127
00:05:40,509 --> 00:05:43,364
at a pace consistent with dealing
with the climate crisis.

128
00:05:43,388 --> 00:05:45,439
So nuclear seems like
a pretty good option,

129
00:05:45,463 --> 00:05:47,501
but there's this big problem with it,

130
00:05:47,525 --> 00:05:49,555
which all of you, I'm sure, are aware of,

131
00:05:49,579 --> 00:05:52,407
which is that people really don't like it.

132
00:05:52,431 --> 00:05:55,622
There was a study, a survey done
of people around the world,

133
00:05:55,646 --> 00:05:58,149
not just in the United States or Europe,

134
00:05:58,173 --> 00:05:59,704
about a year and a half ago.

135
00:05:59,728 --> 00:06:01,062
And what they found

136
00:06:01,086 --> 00:06:04,878
is that nuclear is actually one
of the least popular forms of energy.

137
00:06:04,902 --> 00:06:07,332
Even oil is more popular than nuclear.

138
00:06:07,356 --> 00:06:10,522
And while nuclear kind of
edges out coal, the thing is,

139
00:06:10,546 --> 00:06:14,363
people don't really fear coal
in the same way they fear nuclear,

140
00:06:14,387 --> 00:06:16,804
which really operates on our unconscious.

141
00:06:16,828 --> 00:06:18,463
So what is it that we fear?

142
00:06:18,487 --> 00:06:20,037
There's really three things.

143
00:06:20,061 --> 00:06:22,301
There's the safety
of the plants themselves --

144
00:06:22,325 --> 00:06:25,130
the fears that they're going
to melt down and cause damage;

145
00:06:25,154 --> 00:06:26,499
there's the waste from them;

146
00:06:26,523 --> 00:06:29,030
and there's the association with weapons.

147
00:06:29,562 --> 00:06:30,998
And I think, understandably,

148
00:06:31,022 --> 00:06:35,064
engineers look at those concerns
and look for technological fixes.

149
00:06:35,088 --> 00:06:38,071
That's why Bill Gates is in China
developing advanced reactors.

150
00:06:38,095 --> 00:06:41,219
That's why 40 different entrepreneurs
are working on this problem.

151
00:06:41,243 --> 00:06:43,474
And I, myself, have been
very excited about it.

152
00:06:43,498 --> 00:06:45,640
We did a report:
"How to Make Nuclear Cheap."

153
00:06:45,664 --> 00:06:48,562
In particular, the thorium reactor
shows a lot of promise.

154
00:06:48,586 --> 00:06:50,690
So when the climate
scientist, James Hansen,

155
00:06:50,714 --> 00:06:52,983
asked if I wanted to go to China with him

156
00:06:53,007 --> 00:06:55,391
and look at the Chinese
advanced nuclear program,

157
00:06:55,415 --> 00:06:56,665
I jumped at the chance.

158
00:06:56,689 --> 00:06:59,880
We were there with MIT
and UC Berkeley engineers.

159
00:06:59,904 --> 00:07:01,580
And I had in my mind

160
00:07:01,604 --> 00:07:03,916
that the Chinese would be able
to do with nuclear

161
00:07:03,940 --> 00:07:05,987
what they did with so many other things --

162
00:07:06,011 --> 00:07:09,940
start to crank out small nuclear
reactors on assembly lines,

163
00:07:09,964 --> 00:07:14,352
ship them up like iPhones or MacBooks
and send them around the world.

164
00:07:14,376 --> 00:07:16,359
I would get one at home in Berkeley.

165
00:07:17,120 --> 00:07:19,081
But what I found was somewhat different.

166
00:07:19,105 --> 00:07:22,009
The presentations were all
very exciting and very promising;

167
00:07:22,033 --> 00:07:24,519
they have multiple reactors
that they're working on.

168
00:07:24,543 --> 00:07:27,848
The time came for the thorium reactor,
and a bunch of us were excited.

169
00:07:27,872 --> 00:07:31,271
They went through the whole presentation,
they got to the timeline,

170
00:07:31,295 --> 00:07:32,552
and they said,

171
00:07:32,576 --> 00:07:36,094
"We're going to have
a thorium molten salt reactor

172
00:07:36,118 --> 00:07:38,283
ready for sale to the world

173
00:07:38,307 --> 00:07:39,869
by 2040."

174
00:07:40,850 --> 00:07:42,463
And I was like, "What?"

175
00:07:42,487 --> 00:07:43,502
(Laughter)

176
00:07:43,526 --> 00:07:45,534
I looked at my colleagues and I was like,

177
00:07:45,558 --> 00:07:47,026
"Excuse me --

178
00:07:47,050 --> 00:07:49,380
can you guys speed that up a little bit?

179
00:07:49,404 --> 00:07:52,478
Because we're in a little bit
of a climate crisis right now.

180
00:07:52,502 --> 00:07:55,228
And your cities are really
polluted, by the way."

181
00:07:55,252 --> 00:07:57,570
And they responded back, they were like,

182
00:07:57,594 --> 00:08:00,374
"I'm not sure what you've heard
about our thorium program,

183
00:08:00,398 --> 00:08:02,313
but we don't have a third of our budget,

184
00:08:02,337 --> 00:08:05,449
and your department of energy
hasn't been particularly forthcoming

185
00:08:05,473 --> 00:08:08,954
with all that data you guys
have on testing reactors."

186
00:08:09,382 --> 00:08:11,740
And I said, "Well, I've got an idea.

187
00:08:11,764 --> 00:08:15,360
You know how you've got 10 years
where you're demonstrating that reactor?

188
00:08:15,384 --> 00:08:16,956
Let's just skip that part,

189
00:08:16,980 --> 00:08:19,330
and let's just go right
to commercializing it.

190
00:08:19,354 --> 00:08:21,000
That will save money and time."

191
00:08:21,379 --> 00:08:23,971
And the engineer just
looked at me and said,

192
00:08:23,995 --> 00:08:25,621
"Let me ask you a question:

193
00:08:25,645 --> 00:08:29,163
Would you buy a car that had never
been demonstrated before?"

194
00:08:29,913 --> 00:08:31,510
So what about the other reactors?

195
00:08:31,534 --> 00:08:34,986
There's a reactor that's coming online
now, they're starting to sell it.

196
00:08:35,010 --> 00:08:36,796
It's a high-temperature gas reactor.

197
00:08:36,820 --> 00:08:38,083
It can't melt down.

198
00:08:38,845 --> 00:08:41,580
But it's really big and bulky,
that's part of the safety,

199
00:08:41,604 --> 00:08:43,892
and nobody thinks
it's going to ever get cheaper

200
00:08:43,916 --> 00:08:45,856
than the reactors that we have.

201
00:08:45,880 --> 00:08:49,956
The ones that use waste as fuel
are really cool ideas, but the truth is,

202
00:08:49,980 --> 00:08:52,028
we don't actually know how to do that yet.

203
00:08:52,052 --> 00:08:54,647
There's some risk that you'll
actually make more waste,

204
00:08:54,671 --> 00:08:57,465
and most people think
that if you're including

205
00:08:57,489 --> 00:08:59,571
that waste part of the process,

206
00:08:59,595 --> 00:09:02,562
it's just going to make the whole
machine a lot more expensive,

207
00:09:02,586 --> 00:09:04,918
it's just adding another complicated step.

208
00:09:05,765 --> 00:09:07,059
The truth is,

209
00:09:07,695 --> 00:09:10,845
there's real questions about how much
of that we're going to do.

210
00:09:10,869 --> 00:09:13,755
I mean, we went to India and asked
about the nuclear program.

211
00:09:13,779 --> 00:09:16,177
The government said
before the Paris climate talks

212
00:09:16,201 --> 00:09:19,257
that they were going to do something
like 30 new nuclear plants.

213
00:09:19,281 --> 00:09:21,352
But when we got there
and interviewed people

214
00:09:21,376 --> 00:09:23,457
and even looked at the internal documents,

215
00:09:23,481 --> 00:09:25,933
they're now saying
they're going to do about five.

216
00:09:25,957 --> 00:09:28,503
And in most of the world,
especially the rich world,

217
00:09:28,527 --> 00:09:30,813
they're not talking
about building new reactors.

218
00:09:30,837 --> 00:09:33,125
We're actually talking
about taking reactors down

219
00:09:33,149 --> 00:09:34,815
before their lifetimes are over.

220
00:09:34,839 --> 00:09:37,627
Germany's actually pressuring
its neighbors to do that.

221
00:09:37,651 --> 00:09:39,458
I mentioned the United States --

222
00:09:39,482 --> 00:09:43,825
we could lose half of our reactors
over the next 15 years,

223
00:09:43,849 --> 00:09:46,666
which would wipe out 40 percent
of the emissions reductions

224
00:09:46,690 --> 00:09:49,034
we're supposed to get
under the Clean Power Plan.

225
00:09:49,058 --> 00:09:52,125
Of course, in Japan, they took
all their nuclear plants offline,

226
00:09:52,149 --> 00:09:54,502
replaced them with coal,
natural gas, oil burning,

227
00:09:54,526 --> 00:09:58,088
and they're only expected to bring
online about a third to two-thirds.

228
00:09:58,112 --> 00:10:00,657
So when we went through the numbers,

229
00:10:00,681 --> 00:10:02,004
and just added that up --

230
00:10:02,028 --> 00:10:05,149
how much nuclear do we see
China and India bringing online

231
00:10:05,173 --> 00:10:07,135
over the next 15 years,

232
00:10:07,159 --> 00:10:10,715
how much do we see at risk
of being taken offline --

233
00:10:10,739 --> 00:10:13,028
this was the most startling finding.

234
00:10:13,052 --> 00:10:16,543
What we found is that
the world is actually at risk

235
00:10:16,567 --> 00:10:22,031
of losing four times more clean energy
than we lost over the last 10 years.

236
00:10:22,055 --> 00:10:25,405
In other words: we're not
in a clean energy revolution;

237
00:10:25,429 --> 00:10:27,539
we're in a clean energy crisis.

238
00:10:28,992 --> 00:10:33,164
So it's understandable that engineers
would look for a technical fix

239
00:10:33,188 --> 00:10:35,142
to the fears that people have of nuclear.

240
00:10:35,166 --> 00:10:37,942
But when you consider
that these are big challenges to do,

241
00:10:37,966 --> 00:10:40,251
that they're going to take
a long time to solve,

242
00:10:40,275 --> 00:10:42,021
there's this other issue, which is:

243
00:10:42,045 --> 00:10:45,352
Are those technical fixes
really going to solve people's fears?

244
00:10:45,828 --> 00:10:47,386
Let's take safety.

245
00:10:47,410 --> 00:10:49,895
You know, despite what people think,

246
00:10:49,919 --> 00:10:53,052
it's hard to figure out how
to make nuclear power much safer.

247
00:10:53,076 --> 00:10:55,394
I mean, every medical
journal that looks at it --

248
00:10:55,418 --> 00:10:58,526
this is the most recent study
from the British journal, "Lancet,"

249
00:10:58,550 --> 00:11:01,003
one of the most respected
journals in the world --

250
00:11:01,027 --> 00:11:03,546
nuclear is the safest way
to make reliable power.

251
00:11:03,570 --> 00:11:05,351
Everybody's scared of the accidents.

252
00:11:05,375 --> 00:11:07,669
So you go look at the accident data --

253
00:11:07,693 --> 00:11:09,188
Fukushima, Chernobyl --

254
00:11:09,212 --> 00:11:11,915
the World Health Organization
finds the same thing:

255
00:11:11,939 --> 00:11:15,914
the vast majority of harm
is caused by people panicking,

256
00:11:15,938 --> 00:11:18,258
and they're panicking
because they're afraid.

257
00:11:18,282 --> 00:11:19,507
In other words,

258
00:11:19,531 --> 00:11:23,064
the harm that's caused
isn't actually caused by the machines

259
00:11:23,088 --> 00:11:24,469
or the radiation.

260
00:11:24,493 --> 00:11:26,222
It's caused by our fears.

261
00:11:26,573 --> 00:11:28,018
And what about the waste?

262
00:11:28,042 --> 00:11:29,634
Everyone worries about the waste.

263
00:11:29,658 --> 00:11:31,841
Well, the interesting
thing about the waste

264
00:11:31,865 --> 00:11:33,284
is how little of it there is.

265
00:11:33,308 --> 00:11:34,685
This is just from one plant.

266
00:11:34,709 --> 00:11:38,086
If you take all the nuclear waste
we've ever made in the United States,

267
00:11:38,110 --> 00:11:40,309
put it on a football field, stacked it up,

268
00:11:40,333 --> 00:11:42,556
it would only reach 20 feet high.

269
00:11:42,580 --> 00:11:45,854
And people say it's poisoning
people or doing something --

270
00:11:45,878 --> 00:11:48,777
it's not, it's just sitting
there, it's just being monitored.

271
00:11:48,801 --> 00:11:50,188
There's not very much of it.

272
00:11:50,212 --> 00:11:54,035
By contrast, the waste that we don't
control from energy production --

273
00:11:54,059 --> 00:11:57,183
we call it "pollution," and it kills
seven million people a year,

274
00:11:57,207 --> 00:12:00,036
and it's threatening very serious
levels of global warming.

275
00:12:00,060 --> 00:12:04,012
And the truth is that even if we get
good at using that waste as fuel,

276
00:12:04,036 --> 00:12:06,311
there's always going to be
some fuel left over.

277
00:12:06,335 --> 00:12:10,206
That means there's always going to be
people that think it's a big problem

278
00:12:10,230 --> 00:12:13,534
for reasons that maybe don't have
as much to do with the actual waste

279
00:12:13,558 --> 00:12:14,827
as we think.

280
00:12:14,851 --> 00:12:16,596
Well, what about the weapons?

281
00:12:17,052 --> 00:12:20,345
Maybe the most surprising thing
is that we can't find any examples

282
00:12:20,369 --> 00:12:22,322
of countries that have nuclear power

283
00:12:22,346 --> 00:12:24,774
and then, "Oh!" decide to go get a weapon.

284
00:12:24,798 --> 00:12:26,500
In fact, it works the opposite.

285
00:12:26,524 --> 00:12:28,690
What we find is the only way we know

286
00:12:28,714 --> 00:12:31,166
how to get rid large numbers
of nuclear weapons

287
00:12:31,190 --> 00:12:33,990
is by using the plutonium in the warheads

288
00:12:34,014 --> 00:12:36,466
as fuel in our nuclear power plants.

289
00:12:36,490 --> 00:12:40,404
And so, if you are wanting to get
the world rid of nuclear weapons,

290
00:12:40,428 --> 00:12:43,090
then we're going to need
a lot more nuclear power.

291
00:12:43,955 --> 00:12:46,828
(Applause)

292
00:12:49,515 --> 00:12:50,881
As I was leaving China,

293
00:12:50,905 --> 00:12:54,094
the engineer that brought Bill Gates there
kind of pulled me aside,

294
00:12:54,118 --> 00:12:56,899
and he said, "You know, Michael,
I appreciate your interest

295
00:12:56,923 --> 00:12:59,630
in all the different nuclear
supply technologies,

296
00:12:59,654 --> 00:13:02,576
but there's this more basic issue,

297
00:13:02,600 --> 00:13:05,139
which is that there's just not
enough global demand.

298
00:13:05,163 --> 00:13:08,088
I mean, we can crank out
these machines on assembly lines,

299
00:13:08,112 --> 00:13:09,856
we do know how to make things cheap,

300
00:13:09,880 --> 00:13:12,278
but there's just not enough
people that want them."

301
00:13:12,302 --> 00:13:17,244
And so, let's do solar and wind
and efficiency and conservation.

302
00:13:17,268 --> 00:13:19,552
Let's accelerate the advanced
nuclear programs.

303
00:13:19,576 --> 00:13:22,729
I think we should triple the amount
of money we're spending on it.

304
00:13:23,054 --> 00:13:25,443
But I just think the most important thing,

305
00:13:25,467 --> 00:13:27,623
if we're going to overcome
the climate crisis,

306
00:13:27,647 --> 00:13:32,260
is to keep in mind that the cause
of the clean energy crisis

307
00:13:32,922 --> 00:13:35,181
isn't from within our machines,

308
00:13:35,205 --> 00:13:37,013
it's from within ourselves.

309
00:13:37,557 --> 00:13:38,808
Thank you very much.

310
00:13:38,832 --> 00:13:45,353
(Applause)