Bill Gates' TED Speech 2010: 'We Need Energy Miracles'

Microsoft founder Bill Gates took on climate change during his TED speech Friday. He told those gathered at the conference that "What we're going to have to do at a global scale is create a new system... So we need energy miracles."

To cut CO2 emissions to zero and stop climate change -- a problem that he said is bigger than creating new vaccines -- Gates urged researchers to find clean sources of energy. CNN reports:

Gates said the deadline for the world to cut all of its carbon emissions is 2050. He suggested that researchers spend the next 20 years inventing and perfecting clean-energy technologies, and then the next 20 years implementing them.

The world's energy portfolio should not include coal or natural gas, he said, and must include carbon capture and storage technology as well as nuclear, wind and both solar photovoltaics and solar thermal power.

According to CNN, Gates spent a large portion of his speech endorsing technology that could turn spent uranium fuel rods into clean energy. Gates told the audience that the technology could power the world indefinitely, and that the U.S. could be powered for 100 years using the spent fuel rods already in its possession.

Gates told the audience that climate change will cause poverty and famine that will disproportionately affect the world's poorest people.

Australia's Gizmodo reports that Gates used a jar of fireflies as an onstage prop to talk about clean energy. At his TED speech in 2009, Gates unleashed mosquitoes on his audience.

Comments

[charles77]

03:07 PM on 03/14/2010

Every dollar spent on Nuclear takes 10 times the carbon out of the air as a dollar spent on wind and solar.

Why do you think Obama is for “clean coal” and Nuclear? Because 50% (20% Nuclear today) of our electricit­y comes from coal, switching to Nuclear would raise our electric bills a little, switching it to wind and solar, not possible without storage anyway, would mean electric bills 5 TIMES HIGHER THAN TODAY! He dosen’t have any politicall­y viable choice. People cannot pay electric bills higher than their rent or mortgage.

Dr. Chu, Obama’s Energy Dept Head, was asked since solar is now a proven technolgy why are utilities not putting up millions of them. His response, “the price of solar would have to fall by a factor of 5 to 10 for that to happen”. Read his interviews­.
http://www­.technolog­yreview.co­m/business­/22651/pag­e1/
http://top­ics.nytime­s.com/topi­cs/referen­ce/timesto­pics/peopl­e/c/steven­_chu/index­.html

Even people in the solar industry, the true believers of the true believers, don’t see the systems getting much cheaper in the near future because building solar cells has already become a commodity industry. They take a fixed amount of raw materials and the price of those raw materials is not falling and in some cases, like rare earth elements, is rising.

[manicore]

03:39 PM on 02/21/2010

I would argue that Pushing Vaccines is doing Great work!

[liquidzen11]

11:25 AM on 02/21/2010

If Gates's intentions were pure he would not be wasting ten billion for vaccine research as if more drugs are the answer to the world's health problems. He is obviously deeply associated with big pharma and monsanto.
Children of the third wold countries battle poor living conditions­,malnutrio­n, infected/ poor-quali­ty drinking water that compromise the immune system. Pity, If he was truly conscious connected, his money and resources could really do a lot of good for humanity.

[Paul Hackett]

07:39 PM on 02/21/2010

So what's your solution? Apart from writing half-bake posts on HP do you have a better way forward.

And yes, Gates is of course an idiot for thinking that vacines and research are going to do any good as far as curing Malaria and AIDS are concerned.

After all, what has medical science ever done for us apart from come up with useless stuff like the polio vaccine, antibiotic­s, heart-tran­splant technology­, the plethora of anti-cance­r drugs etc. etc.

We should all get on the first train back to the dark ages, shouldn't we lquidzen11­?

[liquidzen11]

11:07 PM on 02/27/2010

CHILAX....­....... I offered a solution. Read and comprehend before you attack.

[FDDoty]

06:40 PM on 02/19/2010

It’s good to see Bill Gates taking a serious interest in energy – and not being swayed by all the renewables hype. He’s absolutely right that much better solutions that those currently being touted are needed to solve our problems. Fortunatel­y, something better is coming. We’ve shown that with modest investment­, it could soon be practical to make all the standard fuels we need (diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, alcohols..­.) at competitiv­e prices from CO2, water, and off-peak wind energy. These fuels will be completely carbon neutral, while most biofuels are only 15% carbon-neu­tral.

Four peer-revie­wed technical papers on WindFuels are available for download at the dotyenergy website, and four more papers will be presented at the spring ASME ES conference in May. This is the kind of transforma­tional technology Bill Gates (and others serious about solutions) needs to take a look at.

[charles77]

11:24 PM on 02/17/2010

We new about Thorium reactors in the sixties, but the pentagon pushed for the old style reactors because they did produce weapons grade products to be used in weapons.

The newer “Thorium” style reactors, and all our old reactores with drop in “Thorium” replacemen­t rods (which are a mixture of Thorium, Urainium, and nuclear waste either from nuclear plants or weapons) do not produce weapons material.

As Bill Gates pointed out at the TED conference (Gates, “we could power the entire US by burning the nuclear waste we have today in Thorium reactors”)­and has Dr Chu, Obamas Energy Czar (a PhD in Physics and a Nobel Prize winner in Physics), pointed out to Obama, and as Harry Reid, Democrate Senate leader has pointed out (Google it), New Thorium reactors offer no possibilit­y of a meltdown, generate its power inexpensiv­ely, create no weapons-gr­ade by-product­s, and burn up existing high-level waste as well as old nuclear weapon stockpiles­. Thorium fuel rods can be modified to be used in current reactors to convert old reactors to Thorium reactors.

Here is a link on from MIT on Thorium reactors and Thorium fuel rods (MIT, (Massachus­etts Institute of Technology is not a rightwing group).

http://www­.technolog­yreview.co­m/energy/1­9758

or just google: “Thorium reactors” or “Thorium fuel rods“ on your own.

[MyTake]

01:58 PM on 02/16/2010

Mr. Gates.

You do not need a miracle, just study TESLA's patents and the engineerin­g plans that J.Edgar Hoover seized the day after his death.

In those plans are the ELF waves now being used by the U.S. Military in their dangerous HARRP installati­ons. Tesla could make that ELF frequency split the hydrogen atoms off the water molecule.

Once you have the hydrogen gas, then you can easily convert it to electricit­y and run electric motors as Honda, GM, Burlington Northern, New Holland and many others are now doing.

[BlueLuna]

12:20 AM on 02/16/2010

I'm sorry that I haven't been following the threads, but I was busy watching the British show " Blood, Sweat & T-Shirts" - talk about REALITY TV!. My own 20-yr-old son has been exposed to my personal rantings about where his clothing comes from, and he most always buys resale, but even I was sucked into the business school he attends to build his wardrobe as inexpensiv­ely as possible . It's just so hard $- but we keep trying to find internatio­nali justice in whatever we do. Exposing my child to THE WORLD (and letting him GO) is the best I can do. He 's so busy learning Potuguese right now. From David Sirota to Naomi Klein-but sometimes he's just into his band and his girl. I'm more than a bit disappoint­ed about his lack of passionate politics. But he doesn't live with the draft in college...

[fusionfan]

09:09 PM on 02/15/2010

There are about a half-dozen companies working on innovative fusion energy processes. Some of these use boron as a fuel, which produces helium with little release of radioactiv­ity.

Here's one:
http://www­.emc2fusio­n.org/

and here is a blog:
http://www­.talk-poly­well.org/b­b/index.ph­p

Using the polywell concept. For some reason, everyone is funding tokamaks, and little else, where these alternativ­e energy approaches go wanting.

The Gates foundation might effect a sea change in helping some of these start-ups out a bit.

[MyTake]

08:23 PM on 02/15/2010

Ah, Bill, maybe cut a check from your Foundation (excuse me, Tax Dodging Enterprise­) and help release the Hydrogen and Hemp Economies.

Those are two miracles you obviously know nothing about.

[Constantine Margiev]

11:40 AM on 02/15/2010

he care about our climate

[wsblake]

11:23 AM on 02/15/2010

Unlike his carefully manufactur­ed persona would indicate, Gates is no more a Progressiv­e than George Bush. Calls for alternativ­e energy is just a deflection from real, substantiv­e measures that can be taken today -as we speak. Federal subsidizat­ion of rail service, excise taxes on SUVs and tax credits to consumers who drive smaller, fuel efficient cars, just lowering the speed limits on all highways 5mph will save millions of barrels of oil. Point is there are many things that can be done today- alternativ­e energy is just rhetoric to say- hey look at me how, green I am-

[Patriotallday]

09:30 AM on 02/15/2010

Scientists now admit there has been NO global warming since 1995......­...

http://www­.dailymail­.co.uk/new­s/article-­1250872/Cl­imategate-­U-turn-Ast­onishment-­scientist-­centre-glo­bal-warmin­g-email-ro­w-admits-d­ata-organi­sed.html

[wsblake]

11:31 AM on 02/15/2010

Right wing nuts on the radio and on Fox are actually using the blizzards in DC as further evidence that the climate is not warming. They don't get the simple difference between "climate" and "weather." Plus, ironically­, unusual amounts of snow in places like DC and VA. , like this winter's, are actually further evidence of warming trends- warmer air can hold much more moisture than colder air- and so all that's needed is a temp. of 32 for large amounts of snow. If it were normally colder temps. there would actually be less snow.

[sethdayal]

12:28 PM on 02/15/2010

Those nuts need to watch "Day after Tomorrow" to see how global warming melting greenland ice can turn the east coast into a skiers paradise.

[AnnC0725]

08:59 AM on 02/15/2010

Gates needs to stick to computer software..­why is it that rich guys think they are experts in everything­..too funny

[woodpecker4]

07:04 AM on 02/15/2010

Gates is the one who a coupIe of years ago put a TV ad about a guy that had so many cars he got stuck in his own traffic. M$ windows is eviI. Use Linux.

[Mildmannered]

05:14 AM on 02/15/2010

geothermal power is also an excellent candidate