Innovating to zero!
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0:01 - 0:05I'm going to talk today about energy and climate.
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0:05 - 0:07And that might seem a bit surprising because
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0:07 - 0:12my full-time work at the Foundation is mostly about vaccines and seeds,
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0:12 - 0:15about the things that we need to invent and deliver
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0:15 - 0:20to help the poorest two billion live better lives.
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0:20 - 0:25But energy and climate are extremely important to these people --
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0:25 - 0:30in fact, more important than to anyone else on the planet.
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0:30 - 0:35The climate getting worse means that many years, their crops won't grow:
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0:35 - 0:38There will be too much rain, not enough rain,
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0:38 - 0:40things will change in ways
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0:40 - 0:44that their fragile environment simply can't support.
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0:44 - 0:49And that leads to starvation, it leads to uncertainty, it leads to unrest.
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0:49 - 0:53So, the climate changes will be terrible for them.
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0:53 - 0:56Also, the price of energy is very important to them.
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0:56 - 0:59In fact, if you could pick just one thing to lower the price of,
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0:59 - 1:03to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy.
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1:03 - 1:07Now, the price of energy has come down over time.
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1:07 - 1:13Really advanced civilization is based on advances in energy.
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1:13 - 1:17The coal revolution fueled the Industrial Revolution,
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1:17 - 1:23and, even in the 1900s we've seen a very rapid decline in the price of electricity,
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1:23 - 1:26and that's why we have refrigerators, air-conditioning,
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1:26 - 1:30we can make modern materials and do so many things.
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1:30 - 1:37And so, we're in a wonderful situation with electricity in the rich world.
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1:37 - 1:44But, as we make it cheaper -- and let's go for making it twice as cheap --
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1:44 - 1:46we need to meet a new constraint,
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1:46 - 1:50and that constraint has to do with CO2.
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1:50 - 1:53CO2 is warming the planet,
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1:53 - 1:59and the equation on CO2 is actually a very straightforward one.
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1:59 - 2:03If you sum up the CO2 that gets emitted,
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2:03 - 2:06that leads to a temperature increase,
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2:06 - 2:10and that temperature increase leads to some very negative effects:
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2:10 - 2:13the effects on the weather; perhaps worse, the indirect effects,
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2:13 - 2:18in that the natural ecosystems can't adjust to these rapid changes,
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2:18 - 2:21and so you get ecosystem collapses.
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2:21 - 2:24Now, the exact amount of how you map
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2:24 - 2:28from a certain increase of CO2 to what temperature will be
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2:28 - 2:30and where the positive feedbacks are,
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2:30 - 2:33there's some uncertainty there, but not very much.
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2:33 - 2:36And there's certainly uncertainty about how bad those effects will be,
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2:36 - 2:39but they will be extremely bad.
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2:39 - 2:41I asked the top scientists on this several times:
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2:41 - 2:44Do we really have to get down to near zero?
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2:44 - 2:47Can't we just cut it in half or a quarter?
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2:47 - 2:51And the answer is that until we get near to zero,
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2:51 - 2:53the temperature will continue to rise.
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2:53 - 2:55And so that's a big challenge.
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2:55 - 3:00It's very different than saying "We're a twelve-foot-high truck trying to get under a ten-foot bridge,
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3:00 - 3:03and we can just sort of squeeze under."
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3:03 - 3:07This is something that has to get to zero.
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3:07 - 3:11Now, we put out a lot of carbon dioxide every year,
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3:11 - 3:13over 26 billion tons.
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3:13 - 3:17For each American, it's about 20 tons;
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3:17 - 3:20for people in poor countries, it's less than one ton.
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3:20 - 3:24It's an average of about five tons for everyone on the planet.
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3:24 - 3:26And, somehow, we have to make changes
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3:26 - 3:29that will bring that down to zero.
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3:29 - 3:31It's been constantly going up.
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3:31 - 3:36It's only various economic changes that have even flattened it at all,
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3:36 - 3:39so we have to go from rapidly rising
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3:39 - 3:42to falling, and falling all the way to zero.
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3:42 - 3:44This equation has four factors,
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3:44 - 3:46a little bit of multiplication:
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3:46 - 3:49So, you've got a thing on the left, CO2, that you want to get to zero,
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3:49 - 3:53and that's going to be based on the number of people,
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3:53 - 3:56the services each person's using on average,
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3:56 - 3:59the energy on average for each service,
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3:59 - 4:03and the CO2 being put out per unit of energy.
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4:03 - 4:05So, let's look at each one of these
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4:05 - 4:09and see how we can get this down to zero.
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4:09 - 4:13Probably, one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty near to zero.
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4:13 - 4:16Now that's back from high school algebra,
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4:16 - 4:18but let's take a look.
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4:18 - 4:20First, we've got population.
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4:20 - 4:23The world today has 6.8 billion people.
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4:23 - 4:25That's headed up to about nine billion.
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4:25 - 4:29Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines,
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4:29 - 4:31health care, reproductive health services,
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4:31 - 4:35we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent,
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4:35 - 4:39but there we see an increase of about 1.3.
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4:39 - 4:42The second factor is the services we use.
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4:42 - 4:44This encompasses everything:
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4:44 - 4:48the food we eat, clothing, TV, heating.
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4:48 - 4:51These are very good things:
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4:51 - 4:54getting rid of poverty means providing these services
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4:54 - 4:56to almost everyone on the planet.
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4:56 - 5:00And it's a great thing for this number to go up.
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5:00 - 5:02In the rich world, perhaps the top one billion,
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5:02 - 5:04we probably could cut back and use less,
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5:04 - 5:08but every year, this number, on average, is going to go up,
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5:08 - 5:12and so, over all, that will more than double
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5:12 - 5:15the services delivered per person.
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5:15 - 5:17Here we have a very basic service:
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5:17 - 5:20Do you have lighting in your house to be able to read your homework?
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5:20 - 5:22And, in fact, these kids don't, so they're going out
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5:22 - 5:26and reading their school work under the street lamps.
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5:27 - 5:31Now, efficiency, E, the energy for each service,
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5:31 - 5:33here finally we have some good news.
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5:33 - 5:35We have something that's not going up.
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5:35 - 5:38Through various inventions and new ways of doing lighting,
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5:38 - 5:43through different types of cars, different ways of building buildings --
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5:43 - 5:46there are a lot of services where you can bring
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5:46 - 5:50the energy for that service down quite substantially.
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5:50 - 5:53Some individual services even bring it down by 90 percent.
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5:53 - 5:56There are other services like how we make fertilizer,
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5:56 - 5:58or how we do air transport,
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5:58 - 6:02where the rooms for improvement are far, far less.
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6:02 - 6:04And so, overall here, if we're optimistic,
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6:04 - 6:11we may get a reduction of a factor of three to even, perhaps, a factor of six.
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6:11 - 6:14But for these first three factors now,
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6:14 - 6:19we've gone from 26 billion to, at best, maybe 13 billion tons,
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6:19 - 6:21and that just won't cut it.
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6:21 - 6:23So let's look at this fourth factor --
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6:23 - 6:25this is going to be a key one --
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6:25 - 6:31and this is the amount of CO2 put out per each unit of energy.
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6:31 - 6:35And so the question is: Can you actually get that to zero?
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6:35 - 6:37If you burn coal, no.
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6:37 - 6:39If you burn natural gas, no.
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6:39 - 6:42Almost every way we make electricity today,
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6:42 - 6:48except for the emerging renewables and nuclear, puts out CO2.
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6:48 - 6:51And so, what we're going to have to do at a global scale,
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6:51 - 6:54is create a new system.
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6:54 - 6:56And so, we need energy miracles.
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6:56 - 7:00Now, when I use the term "miracle," I don't mean something that's impossible.
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7:00 - 7:05The microprocessor is a miracle. The personal computer is a miracle.
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7:05 - 7:08The Internet and its services are a miracle.
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7:08 - 7:13So, the people here have participated in the creation of many miracles.
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7:13 - 7:15Usually, we don't have a deadline,
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7:15 - 7:17where you have to get the miracle by a certain date.
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7:17 - 7:21Usually, you just kind of stand by, and some come along, some don't.
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7:21 - 7:25This is a case where we actually have to drive at full speed
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7:25 - 7:30and get a miracle in a pretty tight timeline.
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7:30 - 7:33Now, I thought, "How could I really capture this?
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7:33 - 7:35Is there some kind of natural illustration,
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7:35 - 7:40some demonstration that would grab people's imagination here?"
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7:40 - 7:44I thought back to a year ago when I brought mosquitos,
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7:44 - 7:46and somehow people enjoyed that.
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7:46 - 7:48(Laughter)
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7:48 - 7:51It really got them involved in the idea of,
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7:51 - 7:54you know, there are people who live with mosquitos.
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7:54 - 7:59So, with energy, all I could come up with is this.
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7:59 - 8:02I decided that releasing fireflies
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8:02 - 8:06would be my contribution to the environment here this year.
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8:06 - 8:09So here we have some natural fireflies.
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8:09 - 8:12I'm told they don't bite; in fact, they might not even leave that jar.
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8:12 - 8:15(Laughter)
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8:15 - 8:20Now, there's all sorts of gimmicky solutions like that one,
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8:20 - 8:22but they don't really add up to much.
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8:22 - 8:26We need solutions -- either one or several --
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8:26 - 8:30that have unbelievable scale
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8:30 - 8:32and unbelievable reliability,
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8:32 - 8:35and, although there's many directions people are seeking,
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8:35 - 8:39I really only see five that can achieve the big numbers.
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8:39 - 8:44I've left out tide, geothermal, fusion, biofuels.
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8:44 - 8:46Those may make some contribution,
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8:46 - 8:48and if they can do better than I expect, so much the better,
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8:48 - 8:50but my key point here
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8:50 - 8:54is that we're going to have to work on each of these five,
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8:54 - 8:58and we can't give up any of them because they look daunting,
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8:58 - 9:02because they all have significant challenges.
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9:02 - 9:04Let's look first at the burning fossil fuels,
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9:04 - 9:08either burning coal or burning natural gas.
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9:08 - 9:11What you need to do there, seems like it might be simple, but it's not,
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9:11 - 9:17and that's to take all the CO2, after you've burned it, going out the flue,
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9:17 - 9:20pressurize it, create a liquid, put it somewhere,
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9:20 - 9:22and hope it stays there.
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9:22 - 9:26Now we have some pilot things that do this at the 60 to 80 percent level,
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9:26 - 9:30but getting up to that full percentage, that will be very tricky,
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9:30 - 9:36and agreeing on where these CO2 quantities should be put will be hard,
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9:36 - 9:39but the toughest one here is this long-term issue.
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9:39 - 9:41Who's going to be sure?
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9:41 - 9:45Who's going to guarantee something that is literally billions of times larger
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9:45 - 9:49than any type of waste you think of in terms of nuclear or other things?
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9:49 - 9:52This is a lot of volume.
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9:52 - 9:54So that's a tough one.
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9:54 - 9:56Next would be nuclear.
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9:56 - 9:59It also has three big problems:
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9:59 - 10:03Cost, particularly in highly regulated countries, is high;
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10:03 - 10:07the issue of the safety, really feeling good about nothing could go wrong,
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10:07 - 10:10that, even though you have these human operators,
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10:10 - 10:13that the fuel doesn't get used for weapons.
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10:13 - 10:15And then what do you do with the waste?
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10:15 - 10:18And, although it's not very large, there are a lot of concerns about that.
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10:18 - 10:20People need to feel good about it.
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10:20 - 10:25So three very tough problems that might be solvable,
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10:25 - 10:27and so, should be worked on.
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10:27 - 10:30The last three of the five, I've grouped together.
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10:30 - 10:34These are what people often refer to as the renewable sources.
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10:34 - 10:38And they actually -- although it's great they don't require fuel --
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10:38 - 10:40they have some disadvantages.
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10:40 - 10:46One is that the density of energy gathered in these technologies
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10:46 - 10:48is dramatically less than a power plant.
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10:48 - 10:52This is energy farming, so you're talking about many square miles,
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10:52 - 10:57thousands of time more area than you think of as a normal energy plant.
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10:57 - 11:00Also, these are intermittent sources.
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11:00 - 11:03The sun doesn't shine all day, it doesn't shine every day,
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11:03 - 11:06and, likewise, the wind doesn't blow all the time.
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11:06 - 11:08And so, if you depend on these sources,
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11:08 - 11:11you have to have some way of getting the energy
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11:11 - 11:14during those time periods that it's not available.
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11:14 - 11:17So, we've got big cost challenges here,
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11:17 - 11:19we have transmission challenges:
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11:19 - 11:22for example, say this energy source is outside your country;
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11:22 - 11:24you not only need the technology,
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11:24 - 11:29but you have to deal with the risk of the energy coming from elsewhere.
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11:29 - 11:31And, finally, this storage problem.
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11:31 - 11:34And, to dimensionalize this, I went through and looked at
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11:34 - 11:37all the types of batteries that get made --
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11:37 - 11:41for cars, for computers, for phones, for flashlights, for everything --
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11:41 - 11:46and compared that to the amount of electrical energy the world uses,
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11:46 - 11:50and what I found is that all the batteries we make now
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11:50 - 11:54could store less than 10 minutes of all the energy.
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11:54 - 11:57And so, in fact, we need a big breakthrough here,
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11:57 - 12:01something that's going to be a factor of 100 better
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12:01 - 12:03than the approaches we have now.
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12:03 - 12:07It's not impossible, but it's not a very easy thing.
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12:07 - 12:11Now, this shows up when you try to get the intermittent source
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12:11 - 12:15to be above, say, 20 to 30 percent of what you're using.
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12:15 - 12:17If you're counting on it for 100 percent,
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12:17 - 12:22you need an incredible miracle battery.
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12:23 - 12:26Now, how we're going to go forward on this -- what's the right approach?
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12:26 - 12:30Is it a Manhattan Project? What's the thing that can get us there?
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12:30 - 12:35Well, we need lots of companies working on this, hundreds.
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12:35 - 12:38In each of these five paths, we need at least a hundred people.
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12:38 - 12:42And a lot of them, you'll look at and say, "They're crazy." That's good.
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12:42 - 12:45And, I think, here in the TED group,
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12:45 - 12:49we have many people who are already pursuing this.
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12:49 - 12:53Bill Gross has several companies, including one called eSolar
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12:53 - 12:55that has some great solar thermal technologies.
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12:55 - 12:59Vinod Khosla's investing in dozens of companies
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12:59 - 13:03that are doing great things and have interesting possibilities,
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13:03 - 13:05and I'm trying to help back that.
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13:05 - 13:09Nathan Myhrvold and I actually are backing a company
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13:09 - 13:13that, perhaps surprisingly, is actually taking the nuclear approach.
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13:13 - 13:17There are some innovations in nuclear: modular, liquid.
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13:17 - 13:21And innovation really stopped in this industry quite some ago,
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13:21 - 13:26so the idea that there's some good ideas laying around is not all that surprising.
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13:26 - 13:32The idea of TerraPower is that, instead of burning a part of uranium --
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13:32 - 13:35the one percent, which is the U235 --
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13:35 - 13:40we decided, "Let's burn the 99 percent, the U238."
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13:40 - 13:42It is kind of a crazy idea.
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13:42 - 13:45In fact, people had talked about it for a long time,
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13:45 - 13:49but they could never simulate properly whether it would work or not,
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13:49 - 13:52and so it's through the advent of modern supercomputers
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13:52 - 13:54that now you can simulate and see that, yes,
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13:54 - 14:00with the right material's approach, this looks like it would work.
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14:00 - 14:03And, because you're burning that 99 percent,
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14:03 - 14:07you have greatly improved cost profile.
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14:07 - 14:11You actually burn up the waste, and you can actually use as fuel
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14:11 - 14:14all the leftover waste from today's reactors.
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14:14 - 14:19So, instead of worrying about them, you just take that. It's a great thing.
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14:19 - 14:23It breathes this uranium as it goes along, so it's kind of like a candle.
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14:23 - 14:27You can see it's a log there, often referred to as a traveling wave reactor.
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14:27 - 14:31In terms of fuel, this really solves the problem.
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14:31 - 14:34I've got a picture here of a place in Kentucky.
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14:34 - 14:36This is the leftover, the 99 percent,
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14:36 - 14:38where they've taken out the part they burn now,
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14:38 - 14:40so it's called depleted uranium.
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14:40 - 14:43That would power the U.S. for hundreds of years.
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14:43 - 14:46And, simply by filtering seawater in an inexpensive process,
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14:46 - 14:51you'd have enough fuel for the entire lifetime of the rest of the planet.
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14:51 - 14:55So, you know, it's got lots of challenges ahead,
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14:55 - 15:00but it is an example of the many hundreds and hundreds of ideas
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15:00 - 15:03that we need to move forward.
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15:03 - 15:06So let's think: How should we measure ourselves?
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15:06 - 15:09What should our report card look like?
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15:09 - 15:12Well, let's go out to where we really need to get,
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15:12 - 15:14and then look at the intermediate.
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15:14 - 15:19For 2050, you've heard many people talk about this 80 percent reduction.
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15:19 - 15:23That really is very important, that we get there.
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15:23 - 15:27And that 20 percent will be used up by things going on in poor countries,
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15:27 - 15:29still some agriculture,
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15:29 - 15:33hopefully we will have cleaned up forestry, cement.
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15:33 - 15:36So, to get to that 80 percent,
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15:36 - 15:40the developed countries, including countries like China,
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15:40 - 15:45will have had to switch their electricity generation altogether.
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15:45 - 15:51So, the other grade is: Are we deploying this zero-emission technology,
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15:51 - 15:53have we deployed it in all the developed countries
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15:53 - 15:56and we're in the process of getting it elsewhere?
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15:56 - 15:58That's super important.
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15:58 - 16:02That's a key element of making that report card.
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16:02 - 16:07So, backing up from there, what should the 2020 report card look like?
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16:07 - 16:09Well, again, it should have the two elements.
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16:09 - 16:13We should go through these efficiency measures to start getting reductions:
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16:13 - 16:16The less we emit, the less that sum will be of CO2,
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16:16 - 16:18and, therefore, the less the temperature.
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16:18 - 16:21But in some ways, the grade we get there,
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16:21 - 16:25doing things that don't get us all the way to the big reductions,
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16:25 - 16:29is only equally, or maybe even slightly less, important than the other,
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16:29 - 16:33which is the piece of innovation on these breakthroughs.
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16:33 - 16:36These breakthroughs, we need to move those at full speed,
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16:36 - 16:39and we can measure that in terms of companies,
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16:39 - 16:42pilot projects, regulatory things that have been changed.
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16:42 - 16:45There's a lot of great books that have been written about this.
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16:45 - 16:48The Al Gore book, "Our Choice"
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16:48 - 16:51and the David McKay book, "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air."
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16:51 - 16:54They really go through it and create a framework
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16:54 - 16:56that this can be discussed broadly,
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16:56 - 16:59because we need broad backing for this.
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16:59 - 17:01There's a lot that has to come together.
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17:01 - 17:03So this is a wish.
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17:03 - 17:07It's a very concrete wish that we invent this technology.
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17:07 - 17:10If you gave me only one wish for the next 50 years --
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17:10 - 17:12I could pick who's president,
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17:12 - 17:15I could pick a vaccine, which is something I love,
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17:15 - 17:17or I could pick that this thing
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17:17 - 17:21that's half the cost with no CO2 gets invented --
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17:21 - 17:23this is the wish I would pick.
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17:23 - 17:25This is the one with the greatest impact.
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17:25 - 17:27If we don't get this wish,
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17:27 - 17:31the division between the people who think short term and long term will be terrible,
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17:31 - 17:34between the U.S. and China, between poor countries and rich,
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17:34 - 17:39and most of all the lives of those two billion will be far worse.
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17:39 - 17:41So, what do we have to do?
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17:41 - 17:46What am I appealing to you to step forward and drive?
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17:46 - 17:49We need to go for more research funding.
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17:49 - 17:51When countries get together in places like Copenhagen,
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17:51 - 17:54they shouldn't just discuss the CO2.
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17:54 - 17:56They should discuss this innovation agenda,
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17:56 - 18:01and you'd be stunned at the ridiculously low levels of spending
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18:01 - 18:03on these innovative approaches.
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18:03 - 18:07We do need the market incentives -- CO2 tax, cap and trade --
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18:07 - 18:10something that gets that price signal out there.
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18:10 - 18:12We need to get the message out.
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18:12 - 18:15We need to have this dialogue be a more rational, more understandable dialogue,
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18:15 - 18:18including the steps that the government takes.
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18:18 - 18:22This is an important wish, but it is one I think we can achieve.
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18:22 - 18:24Thank you.
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18:24 - 18:35(Applause)
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18:35 - 18:37Thank you.
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18:37 - 18:39Chris Anderson: Thank you. Thank you.
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18:39 - 18:44(Applause)
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18:44 - 18:50Thank you. So to understand more about TerraPower, right --
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18:50 - 18:55I mean, first of all, can you give a sense of what scale of investment this is?
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18:55 - 18:59Bil Gates: To actually do the software, buy the supercomputer,
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18:59 - 19:01hire all the great scientists, which we've done,
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19:01 - 19:04that's only tens of millions,
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19:04 - 19:07and even once we test our materials out in a Russian reactor
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19:07 - 19:11to make sure that our materials work properly,
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19:11 - 19:13then you'll only be up in the hundreds of millions.
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19:13 - 19:16The tough thing is building the pilot reactor;
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19:16 - 19:21finding the several billion, finding the regulator, the location
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19:21 - 19:23that will actually build the first one of these.
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19:23 - 19:27Once you get the first one built, if it works as advertised,
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19:27 - 19:31then it's just clear as day, because the economics, the energy density,
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19:31 - 19:33are so different than nuclear as we know it.
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19:33 - 19:37CA: And so, to understand it right, this involves building deep into the ground
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19:37 - 19:41almost like a vertical kind of column of nuclear fuel,
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19:41 - 19:43of this sort of spent uranium,
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19:43 - 19:46and then the process starts at the top and kind of works down?
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19:46 - 19:49BG: That's right. Today, you're always refueling the reactor,
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19:49 - 19:52so you have lots of people and lots of controls that can go wrong:
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19:52 - 19:55that thing where you're opening it up and moving things in and out,
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19:55 - 19:57that's not good.
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19:57 - 20:02So, if you have very cheap fuel that you can put 60 years in --
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20:02 - 20:04just think of it as a log --
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20:04 - 20:07put it down and not have those same complexities.
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20:07 - 20:12And it just sits there and burns for the 60 years, and then it's done.
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20:12 - 20:16CA: It's a nuclear power plant that is its own waste disposal solution.
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20:16 - 20:18BG: Yeah. Well, what happens with the waste,
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20:18 - 20:23you can let it sit there -- there's a lot less waste under this approach --
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20:23 - 20:25then you can actually take that,
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20:25 - 20:28and put it into another one and burn that.
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20:28 - 20:32And we start off actually by taking the waste that exists today,
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20:32 - 20:36that's sitting in these cooling pools or dry casking by reactors --
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20:36 - 20:38that's our fuel to begin with.
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20:38 - 20:41So, the thing that's been a problem from those reactors
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20:41 - 20:43is actually what gets fed into ours,
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20:43 - 20:46and you're reducing the volume of the waste quite dramatically
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20:46 - 20:48as you're going through this process.
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20:48 - 20:50CA: I mean, you're talking to different people around the world
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20:50 - 20:52about the possibilities here.
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20:52 - 20:55Where is there most interest in actually doing something with this?
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20:55 - 20:58BG: Well, we haven't picked a particular place,
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20:58 - 21:06and there's all these interesting disclosure rules about anything that's called "nuclear,"
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21:06 - 21:08so we've got a lot of interest,
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21:08 - 21:12that people from the company have been in Russia, India, China --
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21:12 - 21:14I've been back seeing the secretary of energy here,
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21:14 - 21:18talking about how this fits into the energy agenda.
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21:18 - 21:21So I'm optimistic. You know, the French and Japanese have done some work.
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21:21 - 21:25This is a variant on something that has been done.
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21:25 - 21:29It's an important advance, but it's like a fast reactor,
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21:29 - 21:31and a lot of countries have built them,
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21:31 - 21:36so anybody who's done a fast reactor is a candidate to be where the first one gets built.
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21:36 - 21:41CA: So, in your mind, timescale and likelihood
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21:41 - 21:44of actually taking something like this live?
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21:44 - 21:49BG: Well, we need -- for one of these high-scale, electro-generation things
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21:49 - 21:51that's very cheap,
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21:51 - 21:55we have 20 years to invent and then 20 years to deploy.
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21:55 - 22:00That's sort of the deadline that the environmental models
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22:00 - 22:02have shown us that we have to meet.
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22:02 - 22:07And, you know, TerraPower, if things go well -- which is wishing for a lot --
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22:07 - 22:09could easily meet that.
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22:09 - 22:12And there are, fortunately now, dozens of companies --
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22:12 - 22:14we need it to be hundreds --
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22:14 - 22:16who, likewise, if their science goes well,
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22:16 - 22:19if the funding for their pilot plants goes well,
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22:19 - 22:21that they can compete for this.
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22:21 - 22:23And it's best if multiple succeed,
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22:23 - 22:26because then you could use a mix of these things.
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22:26 - 22:28We certainly need one to succeed.
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22:28 - 22:31CA: In terms of big-scale possible game changes,
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22:31 - 22:34is this the biggest that you're aware of out there?
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22:34 - 22:38BG: An energy breakthrough is the most important thing.
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22:38 - 22:40It would have been, even without the environmental constraint,
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22:40 - 22:45but the environmental constraint just makes it so much greater.
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22:45 - 22:48In the nuclear space, there are other innovators.
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22:48 - 22:51You know, we don't know their work as well as we know this one,
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22:51 - 22:54but the modular people, that's a different approach.
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22:54 - 22:58There's a liquid-type reactor, which seems a little hard,
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22:58 - 23:00but maybe they say that about us.
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23:00 - 23:03And so, there are different ones,
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23:03 - 23:06but the beauty of this is a molecule of uranium
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23:06 - 23:10has a million times as much energy as a molecule of, say, coal,
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23:10 - 23:13and so -- if you can deal with the negatives,
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23:13 - 23:16which are essentially the radiation --
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23:16 - 23:19the footprint and cost, the potential,
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23:19 - 23:21in terms of effect on land and various things,
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23:21 - 23:25is almost in a class of its own.
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23:25 - 23:29CA: If this doesn't work, then what?
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23:29 - 23:33Do we have to start taking emergency measures
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23:33 - 23:36to try and keep the temperature of the earth stable?
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23:36 - 23:38BG: If you get into that situation,
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23:38 - 23:43it's like if you've been over-eating, and you're about to have a heart attack:
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23:43 - 23:47Then where do you go? You may need heart surgery or something.
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23:47 - 23:51There is a line of research on what's called geoengineering,
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23:51 - 23:54which are various techniques that would delay the heating
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23:54 - 23:57to buy us 20 or 30 years to get our act together.
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23:57 - 23:59Now, that's just an insurance policy.
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23:59 - 24:01You hope you don't need to do that.
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24:01 - 24:03Some people say you shouldn't even work on the insurance policy
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24:03 - 24:05because it might make you lazy,
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24:05 - 24:09that you'll keep eating because you know heart surgery will be there to save you.
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24:09 - 24:12I'm not sure that's wise, given the importance of the problem,
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24:12 - 24:16but there's now the geoengineering discussion
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24:16 - 24:20about -- should that be in the back pocket in case things happen faster,
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24:20 - 24:23or this innovation goes a lot slower than we expect?
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24:25 - 24:30CA: Climate skeptics: If you had a sentence or two to say to them,
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24:30 - 24:34how might you persuade them that they're wrong?
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24:35 - 24:39BG: Well, unfortunately, the skeptics come in different camps.
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24:39 - 24:43The ones who make scientific arguments are very few.
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24:43 - 24:46Are they saying that there's negative feedback effects
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24:46 - 24:48that have to do with clouds that offset things?
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24:48 - 24:51There are very, very few things that they can even say
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24:51 - 24:54there's a chance in a million of those things.
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24:54 - 24:57The main problem we have here, it's kind of like AIDS.
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24:57 - 25:01You make the mistake now, and you pay for it a lot later.
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25:01 - 25:05And so, when you have all sorts of urgent problems,
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25:05 - 25:08the idea of taking pain now that has to do with a gain later,
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25:08 - 25:11and a somewhat uncertain pain thing --
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25:11 - 25:17in fact, the IPCC report, that's not necessarily the worst case,
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25:17 - 25:19and there are people in the rich world who look at IPCC
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25:19 - 25:23and say, "OK, that isn't that big of a deal."
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25:23 - 25:27The fact is it's that uncertain part that should move us towards this.
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25:27 - 25:30But my dream here is that, if you can make it economic,
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25:30 - 25:32and meet the CO2 constraints,
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25:32 - 25:34then the skeptics say, "OK,
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25:34 - 25:36I don't care that it doesn't put out CO2,
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25:36 - 25:38I kind of wish it did put out CO2,
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25:38 - 25:42but I guess I'll accept it because it's cheaper than what's come before."
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25:42 - 25:46(Applause)
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25:46 - 25:50CA: And so, that would be your response to the Bjorn Lomborg argument,
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25:50 - 25:54that basically if you spend all this energy trying to solve the CO2 problem,
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25:54 - 25:56it's going to take away all your other goals
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25:56 - 25:59of trying to rid the world of poverty and malaria and so forth,
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25:59 - 26:03it's a stupid waste of the Earth's resources to put money towards that
-
26:03 - 26:05when there are better things we can do.
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26:05 - 26:08BG: Well, the actual spending on the R&D piece --
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26:08 - 26:12say the U.S. should spend 10 billion a year more than it is right now --
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26:12 - 26:14it's not that dramatic.
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26:14 - 26:16It shouldn't take away from other things.
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26:16 - 26:19The thing you get into big money on, and this, reasonable people can disagree,
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26:19 - 26:22is when you have something that's non-economic and you're trying to fund that --
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26:22 - 26:25that, to me, mostly is a waste.
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26:25 - 26:28Unless you're very close and you're just funding the learning curve
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26:28 - 26:30and it's going to get very cheap,
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26:30 - 26:34I believe we should try more things that have a potential
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26:34 - 26:36to be far less expensive.
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26:36 - 26:41If the trade-off you get into is, "Let's make energy super expensive,"
-
26:41 - 26:43then the rich can afford that.
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26:43 - 26:46I mean, all of us here could pay five times as much for our energy
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26:46 - 26:48and not change our lifestyle.
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26:48 - 26:50The disaster is for that two billion.
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26:50 - 26:52And even Lomborg has changed.
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26:52 - 26:57His shtick now is, "Why isn't the R&D getting more discussed?"
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26:57 - 26:59He's still, because of his earlier stuff,
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26:59 - 27:01still associated with the skeptic camp,
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27:01 - 27:04but he's realized that's a pretty lonely camp,
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27:04 - 27:07and so, he's making the R&D point.
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27:07 - 27:12And so there is a thread of something that I think is appropriate.
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27:12 - 27:15The R&D piece, it's crazy how little it's funded.
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27:15 - 27:18CA: Well Bill, I suspect I speak on the behalf of most people here
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27:18 - 27:21to say I really hope your wish comes true. Thank you so much.
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27:21 - 27:23BG: Thank you.
-
27:23 - 27:26(Applause)
- Title:
- Innovating to zero!
- Speaker:
- Bill Gates
- Description:
-
At TED2010, Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world's energy future, describing the need for "miracles" to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he's backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 27:32
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for Innovating to zero! | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Innovating to zero! | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for Innovating to zero! | ||
TED edited English subtitles for Innovating to zero! | ||
TED added a translation |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 3/14/2017.