Innovating to zero! | Bill Gates

Summary

比尔·盖茨在演讲中讨论了能源和气候变化对全球贫困人口的影响，强调了能源价格的重要性以及CO2排放对气候变化的贡献。他提出了一个挑战，即到2050年将CO2排放量降至接近零，并探讨了可能的解决方案，包括核能、可再生能源和能源效率的提升。盖茨呼吁更多的研究资金和市场激励措施，以推动技术创新和突破，以实现无CO2排放的能源未来。

Takeaways

• 🌍 能源和气候对全球最贫困的20亿人口至关重要，气候变化对他们的生活影响巨大。
• 🌱 能源价格对减少贫困至关重要，历史上能源价格的下降推动了文明的进步。
• 🔥 CO2排放是全球变暖的主要原因，需要将其降至接近零以防止温度持续上升。
• 📉 目前全球每年排放超过260亿吨CO2，人均约5吨，美国人约20吨。
• 🔄 要将CO2排放降至零，需要在人口、服务、能源效率和单位能源CO2排放四个方面做出改变。
• 💡 提高能源效率是降低CO2排放的关键途径，有些服务能效提升可达90%。
• ⚡ 可再生能源（如太阳能、风能）虽然不依赖燃料，但存在能量密度低和间歇性问题。
• 🔋 目前的电池技术无法满足大规模储能需求，需要实现至少100倍的提升。
• 🌐 为实现2050年80%的减排目标，发达国家需完全转变电力生产方式。
• 🚀 创新是解决能源和气候问题的关键，需要大量公司和研究团队在多个方向上努力。
• 🌟 比尔·盖茨投资的TerraPower公司正在开发新型核能技术，旨在更安全、经济地利用核能。

Q & A

为什么能源和气候对最贫困的20亿人来说非常重要？

气候变化的恶化意味着他们的庄稼可能会因为降雨过多或过少而无法生长，这会导致饥饿、不确定性和社会动荡。此外，能源价格对他们来说至关重要，降低能源成本是减少贫困的关键。

能源价格下降对现代社会有什么影响？

能源价格的下降推动了先进文明的发展，例如煤炭革命推动了工业革命。20世纪以来，电力价格的快速下降使得我们能够拥有冰箱、空调等现代设施，并能够制造现代材料，进行多种活动。

CO2排放对地球的影响是什么？

CO2排放导致地球温度上升，进而引发一系列负面影响，如天气变化、生态系统崩溃等。这些影响可能非常严重，尽管对于CO2增加与温度升高的具体映射关系存在一定的不确定性。

为什么我们需要将CO2排放降至接近零？

科学家们表示，只有将CO2排放降至接近零，地球温度才会停止上升。如果不达到这个目标，温度将继续上升，导致更严重的后果。

全球每年排放多少CO2？

全球每年排放超过260亿吨CO2。每个美国人平均排放约20吨，而贫困国家的人平均不到一吨。

能源效率（E）的提高意味着什么？

能源效率的提高意味着为每项服务提供所需的能源可以大幅减少。有些服务的能源需求甚至可以减少90%。总体而言，如果我们乐观估计，可能会实现三到六倍的减少。

比尔·盖茨提到的五种可能的能源解决方案是什么？

比尔·盖茨提到的五种可能的能源解决方案包括：化石燃料的燃烧（煤炭或天然气）、核能、以及三种可再生能源（太阳能、风能和其他）。他排除了潮汐能、地热能、核聚变和生物燃料，认为这些可能做出一些贡献，但不足以实现大规模的能源需求。

为什么比尔·盖茨认为我们需要能源奇迹？

我们需要能源奇迹，因为现有的能源系统无法满足未来对零排放的需求。我们需要创新的能源技术，这些技术必须具有难以置信的规模和可靠性，并且能够在紧迫的时间表内实现。

比尔·盖茨提到的TerraPower是什么？

TerraPower是一种新型核能技术，它旨在燃烧铀的99%（U238），而不是目前核反应堆使用的1%（U235）。这种方法可以大幅提高成本效益，同时减少核废料的产生，并利用现有核废料作为燃料。

比尔·盖茨如何评估2050年的能源目标？

到2050年，我们需要实现80%的CO2减排。这需要发达国家完全转变电力生成方式，并且部署零排放技术。此外，2020年的报告卡应该包括效率措施的实施和突破性创新的推进。

比尔·盖茨对气候变化怀疑论者有何看法？

比尔·盖茨认为，气候变化怀疑论者提出的科学论点非常少，而且大多数论点的可能性都非常小。他强调，即使没有环境约束，能源突破也是最重要的事情，环境约束只是使其更加紧迫。

如果能源创新失败，我们是否需要采取紧急措施来稳定地球的温度？

如果能源创新失败，我们可能需要考虑所谓的地球工程学，这是一系列可能延迟地球加热的技术，为我们争取时间。但这只是保险政策，我们希望不需要采取这样的措施。

Outlines

00:00

🌍 能源与气候对贫困人群的影响

本段讨论了能源和气候对于全球最贫困的二十亿人的重要性。气候变化对他们的生活产生了巨大影响，如作物生长受阻导致饥荒、不确定性和动荡。能源价格对他们同样至关重要，能源价格的降低是减少贫困的关键。历史上，能源价格的下降推动了文明的进步，但随着能源变得更便宜，我们必须面对新的挑战——二氧化碳排放对气候变化的影响。为了减缓气候变化，我们需要将二氧化碳排放降至接近零，这是一个巨大的挑战。

05:04

📈 提高能源效率与服务需求的增长

这一部分讨论了随着全球人口增长和服务需求的提高，能源使用的增加是不可避免的。尽管如此，通过创新和技术进步，我们可以提高能源效率，减少每项服务所需的能源。虽然有些服务的能源消耗可以大幅降低，但其他服务如化肥生产和航空运输的改进空间较小。尽管前三因素（人口、服务需求、能源效率）有所改善，但要达到减少二氧化碳排放的目标，我们仍需在每单位能源排放的二氧化碳量上取得突破。

10:05

⚡ 能源奇迹：清洁能源的挑战与机遇

本段强调了为了减少二氧化碳排放，我们需要创造能源奇迹。作者提到了微处理器、个人电脑和互联网等技术奇迹，并强调我们需要在紧迫的时间线内实现新的能源技术突破。作者通过释放萤火虫的行动来象征性地表达对环境的贡献，并强调了我们需要规模巨大且可靠的解决方案。作者认为，虽然有许多方向正在探索，但只有五种方法能够实现大规模减排，包括化石燃料的清洁燃烧、核能、以及三种可再生能源技术。

15:06

🌐 核能与可再生能源的挑战

在这一段中，作者讨论了核能和可再生能源面临的挑战。核能的成本、安全性和废物处理问题是需要解决的难题。而可再生能源，尽管不需要燃料，但其能量密度低、间歇性以及存储问题也是挑战。作者提到，所有现有的电池技术加起来也只能存储全世界不到10分钟的能源消耗，因此我们需要一个比现有技术好100倍的突破。作者强调，为了实现这些目标，我们需要大量的公司和创新者参与进来。

20:08

🚀 创新与投资：能源技术的未来

本段中，作者提出了衡量我们在能源创新方面进展的标准，并强调了到2050年我们需要达到的减排目标。作者提出了两个关键指标：一是发达国家和地区是否已经完全转换了他们的电力生产方式，二是零排放技术是否已经部署并在向其他地方推广。作者还强调了2020年的中期目标，包括效率措施的实施和创新突破的加速。作者呼吁更多的研究资金、市场激励措施以及更加理性和易于理解的公众对话，以支持这一领域的创新。

25:10

🌟 特里能源（TerraPower）：核能的未来

在这一段中，作者详细介绍了特里能源（TerraPower）的概念，这是一种新型的核能技术，旨在通过燃烧铀的99%（U238）而非传统的1%（U235）来发电。这种技术有望解决核能的成本问题，并且能够利用现有的核废料作为燃料，从而减少废物的产生。作者讨论了这种技术的潜在规模、投资需求以及全球对这种技术的兴趣。他还提到了这种技术可能面临的挑战，包括建造试验反应堆的成本和监管问题。

🌱 气候变化的紧迫性与解决方案

最后一段中，作者强调了气候变化问题的紧迫性，并讨论了如果能源技术突破不成功，我们可能需要采取的紧急措施。作者提到了地球工程学作为一项保险政策，以防气候变化的速度超出我们的预期或创新的速度慢于预期。作者还回应了气候变化怀疑论者的观点，强调了即使没有环境约束，能源突破也是至关重要的，而环境约束只是增加了其重要性。作者最后呼吁更多的研发投资，并认为这不应该影响到其他全球目标的实现。

Keywords

💡能源与气候

能源与气候是视频中讨论的核心议题，指的是能源的使用与气候变化之间的紧密联系。视频中提到，能源对于改善最贫困的20亿人的生活质量至关重要，但同时也与气候变化问题紧密相关。气候变化的恶化将直接影响农作物的生长，导致粮食短缺和社会动荡。

💡贫困

贫困是指缺乏基本生活必需品和资源的状态。在视频中，贫困与能源价格紧密相关，能源价格的降低被认为是减少贫困的最有效途径。此外，贫困人群对能源价格的敏感性更高，因为他们的生活成本中能源占比更大。

💡气候变化

气候变化是指长期气候模式的显著变化，通常是由自然过程和人类活动引起的。视频中强调气候变化对贫困地区的影响尤为严重，因为它会导致作物减产、生态系统崩溃和更多的社会问题。

💡二氧化碳排放

二氧化碳排放是指二氧化碳（CO2）进入大气层的过程，主要来源于化石燃料的燃烧。视频中提到，二氧化碳排放是全球变暖的主要原因，需要通过创新技术将其降至接近零以防止温度持续上升。

💡能源效率

能源效率是指以更少的能源消耗来提供相同或更多的服务。视频中提到，通过发明和创新，可以显著提高能源效率，例如改进照明和建筑技术，从而减少能源使用和服务成本。

💡可再生能源

可再生能源是指可以自然补充并长期使用的能源，如太阳能、风能和水能。视频中提到，虽然可再生能源不依赖燃料，但它们面临能量密度低、间歇性和存储问题等挑战。

💡核能

核能是通过核反应释放能量的一种能源形式。视频中提到，核能面临成本、安全性和核废料处理等问题，但同时也是一种潜在的零排放能源解决方案。

💡技术创新

技术创新是指创造或改进产品、服务和生产过程的新颖方法。视频中强调，为了应对气候变化和能源挑战，需要在能源领域实现重大的技术创新，包括开发新的零排放能源技术。

💡环境模型

环境模型是用来模拟和预测环境系统行为的数学模型或计算机模拟。视频中提到，根据环境模型，我们有20年时间来发明新技术，然后再用20年时间部署这些技术，以满足气候变化的目标。

💡地球工程

地球工程是指人为地干预地球系统的大规模技术，旨在对抗气候变化的影响。视频中提到，如果技术创新进展缓慢或气候变化速度加快，地球工程可能作为一种保险政策被考虑。

💡气候怀疑论者

气候怀疑论者是对气候变化科学共识持怀疑态度的个人或团体。视频中提到，气候怀疑论者很少提出科学论据，而且即使他们提出，这些论据的可能性也非常小。

Highlights

比尔·盖茨讨论了能源和气候问题，强调这些问题对全球最贫困的20亿人来说至关重要。

气候变化对贫困地区的影响尤为严重，可能导致农作物无法生长，引发饥荒和社会动荡。

能源价格对贫困人口极为重要，降低能源成本是减少贫困的关键。

历史上，能源成本的下降推动了文明的进步，如煤炭革命和电力成本的下降。

比尔·盖茨强调，为了应对气候变化，我们需要创造能源奇迹，并且要在紧迫的时间线内实现。

全球每年排放超过260亿吨二氧化碳，人均约5吨，美国人人均约20吨。

能源消耗的四个因素：人口、人均服务使用量、每项服务的平均能源消耗、每单位能源排放的二氧化碳。

比尔·盖茨提到，通过创新和效率提升，我们可以显著降低服务所需的能源消耗。

比尔·盖茨提出了五种可能的能源解决方案：化石燃料捕集与封存、核能、以及三种可再生能源技术。

核能面临的三大挑战：成本、安全性和核废料处理。

可再生能源的挑战包括能量密度低、间歇性和储能问题。

比尔·盖茨支持TerraPower公司，该公司致力于开发新型核能技术，利用铀的99%，而非传统的1%。

TerraPower的技术能够减少核废料的产生，并且可以使用现有核废料作为燃料。

比尔·盖茨呼吁更多的研究资金和市场激励措施，如碳税和总量控制与交易制度。

比尔·盖茨认为，到2050年，发达国家需要完全转换电力生产方式，并且在全球范围内部署零排放技术。

比尔·盖茨强调，如果我们不实现这一愿望，短期和长期观念的分歧将非常严重，尤其是对最贫困的20亿人的生活影响巨大。

比尔·盖茨提出，即使没有环境约束，能源突破也是最重要的事情，环境约束使得这一点更加重要。

比尔·盖茨讨论了地球工程学作为保险政策的可能性，以延迟地球加热，为我们争取时间。

Transcripts

I'm going to talk today about energy and climate.

And that might seem a bit surprising,

because my full-time work at the foundation

is mostly about vaccines and seeds,

about the things that we need to invent and deliver

to help the poorest two billion live better lives.

But energy and climate are extremely important to these people;

in fact, more important than to anyone else on the planet.

The climate getting worse means that many years, their crops won't grow:

there will be too much rain, not enough rain;

things will change in ways their fragile environment simply can't support.

And that leads to starvation, it leads to uncertainty, it leads to unrest.

So, the climate changes will be terrible for them.

Also, the price of energy is very important to them.

In fact, if you could pick just one thing

to lower the price of to reduce poverty, by far you would pick energy.

Now, the price of energy has come down over time.

Really advanced civilization is based on advances in energy.

The coal revolution fueled the Industrial Revolution,

and, even in the 1900s, we've seen a very rapid decline

in the price of electricity,

and that's why we have refrigerators, air-conditioning;

we can make modern materials and do so many things.

And so, we're in a wonderful situation with electricity in the rich world.

But as we make it cheaper -- and let's say,

let's go for making it twice as cheap --

we need to meet a new constraint,

and that constraint has to do with CO2.

CO2 is warming the planet,

and the equation on CO2 is actually a very straightforward one.

If you sum up the CO2 that gets emitted,

that leads to a temperature increase,

and that temperature increase leads to some very negative effects:

the effects on the weather; perhaps worse, the indirect effects,

in that the natural ecosystems can't adjust to these rapid changes,

and so you get ecosystem collapses.

Now, the exact amount of how you map from a certain increase of CO2

to what temperature will be, and where the positive feedbacks are --

there's some uncertainty there, but not very much.

And there's certainly uncertainty about how bad those effects will be,

but they will be extremely bad.

I asked the top scientists on this several times:

Do we really have to get down to near zero?

Can't we just cut it in half or a quarter?

And the answer is, until we get near to zero,

the temperature will continue to rise.

And so that's a big challenge.

It's very different than saying,

"We're a twelve-foot-high truck trying to get under a ten-foot bridge,

and we can just sort of squeeze under."

This is something that has to get to zero.

Now, we put out a lot of carbon dioxide every year --

over 26 billion tons.

For each American, it's about 20 tons.

For people in poor countries, it's less than one ton.

It's an average of about five tons for everyone on the planet.

And somehow, we have to make changes that will bring that down to zero.

It's been constantly going up.

It's only various economic changes that have even flattened it at all,

so we have to go from rapidly rising to falling,

and falling all the way to zero.

This equation has four factors, a little bit of multiplication.

So you've got a thing on the left, CO2, that you want to get to zero,

and that's going to be based on the number of people,

the services each person is using on average,

the energy, on average, for each service,

and the CO2 being put out per unit of energy.

So let's look at each one of these,

and see how we can get this down to zero.

Probably, one of these numbers is going to have to get pretty near to zero.

(Laughter)

That's back from high school algebra.

But let's take a look.

First, we've got population.

The world today has 6.8 billion people.

That's headed up to about nine billion.

Now, if we do a really great job on new vaccines,

health care, reproductive health services,

we could lower that by, perhaps, 10 or 15 percent.

But there, we see an increase of about 1.3.

The second factor is the services we use.

This encompasses everything:

the food we eat, clothing, TV, heating.

These are very good things.

Getting rid of poverty means providing these services

to almost everyone on the planet.

And it's a great thing for this number to go up.

In the rich world, perhaps the top one billion,

we probably could cut back and use less,

but every year, this number, on average, is going to go up,

and so, overall, that will more than double

the services delivered per person.

Here we have a very basic service:

Do you have lighting in your house to be able to read your homework?

And, in fact, these kids don't,

so they're going out and reading their schoolwork

under the street lamps.

Now, efficiency, "E," the energy for each service --

here, finally we have some good news.

We have something that's not going up.

Through various inventions and new ways of doing lighting,

through different types of cars, different ways of building buildings --

there are a lot of services

where you can bring the energy for that service down

quite substantially.

Some individual services even bring it down by 90 percent.

There are other services, like how we make fertilizer,

or how we do air transport,

where the rooms for improvement are far, far less.

And so overall, if we're optimistic, we may get a reduction

of a factor of three to even, perhaps, a factor of six.

But for these first three factors now,

we've gone from 26 billion to, at best, maybe 13 billion tons,

and that just won't cut it.

So let's look at this fourth factor -- this is going to be a key one --

and this is the amount of CO2 put out per each unit of energy.

So the question is: Can you actually get that to zero?

If you burn coal, no.

If you burn natural gas, no.

Almost every way we make electricity today,

except for the emerging renewables and nuclear, puts out CO2.

And so, what we're going to have to do at a global scale,

is create a new system.

So we need energy miracles.

Now, when I use the term "miracle," I don't mean something that's impossible.

The microprocessor is a miracle.

The personal computer is a miracle.

The Internet and its services are a miracle.

So the people here have participated in the creation of many miracles.

Usually, we don't have a deadline

where you have to get the miracle by a certain date.

Usually, you just kind of stand by, and some come along, some don't.

This is a case where we actually have to drive at full speed

and get a miracle in a pretty tight timeline.

Now, I thought, "How could I really capture this?

Is there some kind of natural illustration,

some demonstration that would grab people's imagination here?"

I thought back to a year ago when I brought mosquitoes,

and somehow people enjoyed that.

(Laughter)

It really got them involved in the idea of, you know,

there are people who live with mosquitoes.

With energy, all I could come up with is this.

I decided that releasing fireflies

would be my contribution to the environment here this year.

So here we have some natural fireflies.

I'm told they don't bite; in fact, they might not even leave that jar.

(Laughter)

Now, there's all sorts of gimmicky solutions like that one,

but they don't really add up to much.

We need solutions, either one or several,

that have unbelievable scale and unbelievable reliability.

And although there's many directions that people are seeking,

I really only see five that can achieve the big numbers.

I've left out tide, geothermal, fusion, biofuels.

Those may make some contribution,

and if they can do better than I expect, so much the better.

But my key point here is that we're going to have to work on

each of these five,

and we can't give up any of them because they look daunting,

because they all have significant challenges.

Let's look first at burning fossil fuels,

either burning coal or burning natural gas.

What you need to do there seems like it might be simple, but it's not.

And that's to take all the CO2,

after you've burned it, going out the flue,

pressurize it, create a liquid, put it somewhere,

and hope it stays there.

Now, we have some pilot things

that do this at the 60 to 80 percent level.

But getting up to that full percentage -- that will be very tricky.

And agreeing on where these CO2 quantities should be put will be hard,

but the toughest one here is this long-term issue:

Who's going to be sure?

Who's going to guarantee

something that is literally billions of times larger

than any type of waste you think of in terms of nuclear or other things?

This is a lot of volume.

So that's a tough one.

Next would be nuclear.

It also has three big problems:

cost, particularly in highly regulated countries, is high;

the issue of safety, really feeling good about nothing could go wrong,

that, even though you have these human operators,

the fuel doesn't get used for weapons.

And then what do you do with the waste?

Although it's not very large, there are a lot of concerns about that.

People need to feel good about it.

So three very tough problems that might be solvable,

and so, should be worked on.

The last three of the five, I've grouped together.

These are what people often refer to as the renewable sources.

And they actually -- although it's great they don't require fuel --

they have some disadvantages.

One is that the density of energy gathered in these technologies

is dramatically less than a power plant.

This is energy farming,

so you're talking about many square miles, thousands of times more area

than you think of as a normal energy plant.

Also, these are intermittent sources.

The sun doesn't shine all day, it doesn't shine every day,

and likewise, the wind doesn't blow all the time.

And so, if you depend on these sources,

you have to have some way of getting the energy

during those time periods that it's not available.

So we've got big cost challenges here.

We have transmission challenges;

for example, say this energy source is outside your country,

you not only need the technology,

but you have to deal with the risk of the energy coming from elsewhere.

And, finally, this storage problem.

To dimensionalize this,

I went through and looked at all the types of batteries made --

for cars, for computers, for phones, for flashlights, for everything --

and compared that to the amount of electrical energy the world uses.

What I found is that all the batteries we make now

could store less than 10 minutes of all the energy.

And so, in fact, we need a big breakthrough here,

something that's going to be a factor of 100 better

than the approaches we have now.

It's not impossible, but it's not a very easy thing.

Now, this shows up when you try to get the intermittent source

to be above, say, 20 to 30 percent of what you're using.

If you're counting on it for 100 percent,

you need an incredible miracle battery.

Now, how are we going to go forward on this -- what's the right approach?

Is it a Manhattan Project? What's the thing that can get us there?

Well, we need lots of companies working on this -- hundreds.

In each of these five paths, we need at least a hundred people.

A lot of them, you'll look at and say, "They're crazy."

That's good.

And, I think, here in the TED group,

we have many people who are already pursuing this.

Bill Gross has several companies, including one called eSolar

that has some great solar thermal technologies.

Vinod Khosla is investing in dozens of companies

that are doing great things and have interesting possibilities,

and I'm trying to help back that.

Nathan Myhrvold and I actually are backing a company

that, perhaps surprisingly, is actually taking the nuclear approach.

There are some innovations in nuclear: modular, liquid.

Innovation really stopped in this industry quite some ago,

so the idea that there's some good ideas laying around

is not all that surprising.

The idea of TerraPower is that, instead of burning a part of uranium --

the one percent, which is the U235 --

we decided, "Let's burn the 99 percent, the U238."

It is kind of a crazy idea.

In fact, people had talked about it for a long time,

but they could never simulate properly whether it would work or not,

and so it's through the advent of modern supercomputers

that now you can simulate and see that, yes,

with the right materials approach, this looks like it would work.

And because you're burning that 99 percent,

you have greatly improved cost profile.

You actually burn up the waste, and you can actually use as fuel

all the leftover waste from today's reactors.

So instead of worrying about them, you just take that, it's a great thing.

It breeds this uranium as it goes along, so it's kind of like a candle.

You see it's a log there, often referred to as a traveling wave reactor.

In terms of fuel, this really solves the problem.

I've got a picture here of a place in Kentucky.

This is the leftover, the 99 percent,

where they've taken out the part they burn now,

so it's called depleted uranium.

That would power the US for hundreds of years.

And simply by filtering seawater in an inexpensive process,

you'd have enough fuel for the entire lifetime of the rest of the planet.

So, you know, it's got lots of challenges ahead,

but it is an example of the many hundreds and hundreds of ideas

that we need to move forward.

So let's think: How should we measure ourselves?

What should our report card look like?

Well, let's go out to where we really need to get,

and then look at the intermediate.

For 2050, you've heard many people talk about this 80 percent reduction.

That really is very important, that we get there.

And that 20 percent will be used up by things going on in poor countries --

still some agriculture; hopefully, we will have cleaned up forestry, cement.

So, to get to that 80 percent,

the developed countries, including countries like China,

will have had to switch their electricity generation altogether.

The other grade is: Are we deploying this zero-emission technology,

have we deployed it in all the developed countries

and are in the process of getting it elsewhere?

That's super important.

That's a key element of making that report card.

Backing up from there, what should the 2020 report card look like?

Well, again, it should have the two elements.

We should go through these efficiency measures to start getting reductions:

The less we emit, the less that sum will be of CO2,

and therefore, the less the temperature.

But in some ways, the grade we get there,

doing things that don't get us all the way to the big reductions,

is only equally, or maybe even slightly less, important than the other,

which is the piece of innovation on these breakthroughs.

These breakthroughs, we need to move those at full speed,

and we can measure that in terms of companies,

pilot projects, regulatory things that have been changed.

There's a lot of great books that have been written about this.

The Al Gore book, "Our Choice,"

and the David MacKay book, "Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air."

They really go through it and create a framework

that this can be discussed broadly,

because we need broad backing for this.

There's a lot that has to come together.

So this is a wish.

It's a very concrete wish that we invent this technology.

If you gave me only one wish for the next 50 years --

I could pick who's president,

I could pick a vaccine, which is something I love,

or I could pick that this thing

that's half the cost with no CO2 gets invented --

this is the wish I would pick.

This is the one with the greatest impact.

If we don't get this wish,

the division between the people who think short term and long term

will be terrible,

between the US and China, between poor countries and rich,

and most of all,

the lives of those two billion will be far worse.

So what do we have to do?

What am I appealing to you to step forward and drive?

We need to go for more research funding.

When countries get together in places like Copenhagen,

they shouldn't just discuss the CO2.

They should discuss this innovation agenda.

You'd be stunned at the ridiculously low levels of spending

on these innovative approaches.

We do need the market incentives -- CO2 tax, cap and trade --

something that gets that price signal out there.

We need to get the message out.

We need to have this dialogue be a more rational,

more understandable dialogue,

including the steps that the government takes.

This is an important wish, but it is one I think we can achieve.

Thank you.

(Applause)

(Applause ends)

Thank you.

Chris Anderson: Thank you. Thank you.

(Applause)

CA: Thank you.

So to understand more about TerraPower.

I mean, first of all, can you give a sense of what scale of investment this is?

Bill Gates: To actually do the software, buy the supercomputer,

hire all the great scientists, which we've done,

that's only tens of millions.

And even once we test our materials out in a Russian reactor

to make sure our materials work properly,

then you'll only be up in the hundreds of millions.

The tough thing is building the pilot reactor --

finding the several billion, finding the regulator, the location

that will actually build the first one of these.

Once you get the first one built, if it works as advertised,

then it's just clear as day,

because the economics, the energy density, are so different

than nuclear as we know it.

CA: So to understand it right,

this involves building deep into the ground,

almost like a vertical column of nuclear fuel, of this spent uranium,

and then the process starts at the top and kind of works down?

BG: That's right.

Today, you're always refueling the reactor,

so you have lots of people and lots of controls that can go wrong,

where you're opening it up and moving things in and out --

that's not good.

So if you have very --

(Laughter)

very cheap fuel that you can put 60 years in --

just think of it as a log --

put it down and not have those same complexities.

And it just sits there and burns for the 60 years, and then it's done.

CA: It's a nuclear power plant that is its own waste disposal solution.

BG: Yeah; what happens with the waste,

you can let it sit there -- there's a lot less waste under this approach --

then you can actually take that

and put it into another one and burn that.

And we start out, actually, by taking the waste that exists today

that's sitting in these cooling pools or dry-casking by reactors --

that's our fuel to begin with.

So the thing that's been a problem from those reactors

is actually what gets fed into ours,

and you're reducing the volume of the waste quite dramatically

as you're going through this process.

CA: You're talking to different people around the world

about the possibilities.

Where is there most interest in actually doing something with this?

BG: Well, we haven't picked a particular place,

and there's all these interesting disclosure rules

about anything that's called "nuclear."

So we've got a lot of interest.

People from the company have been in Russia, India, China.

I've been back seeing the secretary of energy here,

talking about how this fits into the energy agenda.

So I'm optimistic.

The French and Japanese have done some work.

This is a variant on something that has been done.

It's an important advance, but it's like a fast reactor,

and a lot of countries have built them,

so anybody who's done a fast reactor is a candidate

to be where the first one gets built.

CA: So, in your mind,

timescale and likelihood of actually taking something like this live?

BG: Well, we need -- for one of these high-scale, electro-generation things

that's very cheap,

we have 20 years to invent and then 20 years to deploy.

That's sort of the deadline

that the environmental models have shown us that we have to meet.

And TerraPower -- if things go well, which is wishing for a lot --

could easily meet that.

And there are, fortunately now, dozens of companies --

we need it to be hundreds --

who, likewise, if their science goes well,

if the funding for their pilot plants goes well,

that they can compete for this.

And it's best if multiple succeed,

because then you could use a mix of these things.

We certainly need one to succeed.

CA: In terms of big-scale possible game changers,

is this the biggest that you're aware of out there?

BG: An energy breakthrough is the most important thing.

It would have been, even without the environmental constraint,

but the environmental constraint just makes it so much greater.

In the nuclear space, there are other innovators.

You know, we don't know their work as well as we know this one,

but the modular people, that's a different approach.

There's a liquid-type reactor, which seems a little hard,

but maybe they say that about us.

And so, there are different ones,

but the beauty of this is a molecule of uranium

has a million times as much energy as a molecule of, say, coal.

And so, if you can deal with the negatives,

which are essentially the radiation, the footprint and cost,

the potential, in terms of effect on land and various things,

is almost in a class of its own.

CA: If this doesn't work, then what?

Do we have to start taking emergency measures

to try and keep the temperature of the earth stable?

BG: If you get into that situation,

it's like if you've been overeating, and you're about to have a heart attack.

Then where do you go?

You may need heart surgery or something.

There is a line of research on what's called geoengineering,

which are various techniques that would delay the heating

to buy us 20 or 30 years to get our act together.

Now, that's just an insurance policy; you hope you don't need to do that.

Some people say you shouldn't even work on the insurance policy

because it might make you lazy,

that you'll keep eating because you know heart surgery will be there to save you.

I'm not sure that's wise, given the importance of the problem,

but there's now the geoengineering discussion

about: Should that be in the back pocket in case things happen faster,

or this innovation goes a lot slower than we expect?

CA: Climate skeptics:

If you had a sentence or two to say to them,

how might you persuade them that they're wrong?

BG: Well, unfortunately, the skeptics come in different camps.

The ones who make scientific arguments are very few.

Are they saying there's negative feedback effects

that have to do with clouds that offset things?

There are very, very few things that they can even say

there's a chance in a million of those things.

The main problem we have here -- it's kind of like with AIDS:

you make the mistake now, and you pay for it a lot later.

And so, when you have all sorts of urgent problems,

the idea of taking pain now that has to do with a gain later,

and a somewhat uncertain pain thing.

In fact, the IPCC report -- that's not necessarily the worst case,

and there are people in the rich world who look at IPCC and say,

"OK, that isn't that big of a deal."

The fact is it's that uncertain part that should move us towards this.

But my dream here is that,

if you can make it economic, and meet the CO2 constraints,

then the skeptics say,

"OK, I don't care that it doesn't put out CO2,

I kind of wish it did put out CO2.

But I guess I'll accept it,

because it's cheaper than what's come before."

(Applause)

CA: So that would be your response to the Bjørn Lomborg argument,

basically if you spend all this energy trying to solve the CO2 problem,

it's going to take away all your other goals

of trying to rid the world of poverty and malaria and so forth,

it's a stupid waste of the Earth's resources

to put money towards that

when there are better things we can do.

BG: Well, the actual spending on the R&D piece --

say the US should spend 10 billion a year more than it is right now --

it's not that dramatic.

It shouldn't take away from other things.

The thing you get into big money on, and reasonable people can disagree,

is when you have something that's non-economic

and you're trying to fund that --

that, to me, mostly is a waste.

Unless you're very close,

and you're just funding the learning curve and it's going to get very cheap,

I believe we should try more things

that have a potential to be far less expensive.

If the trade-off you get into is, "Let's make energy super expensive,"

then the rich can afford that.

I mean, all of us here could pay five times as much for our energy

and not change our lifestyle.

The disaster is for that two billion.

And even Lomborg has changed.

His shtick now is, "Why isn't the R&D getting more discussed?"

He's still, because of his earlier stuff,

still associated with the skeptic camp,

but he's realized that's a pretty lonely camp,

and so, he's making the R&D point.

And so there is a thread of something that I think is appropriate.

The R&D piece -- it's crazy how little it's funded.

CA: Well, Bill, I suspect I speak on behalf of most people here

to say I really hope your wish comes true.

Thank you so much.

BG: Thank you.

(Applause)