Energy Investments Dialogue | Bill Gates | Global Energy Forum
Why Hacker News recommends it
Cited in energy threads for Gates's argument on why batteries and renewables alone fall short and nuclear is needed.
What it is
Bill Gates at Stanford's Global Energy Forum argues that cheaper solar, wind and storage are not nearly enough to stop climate change. He discusses natural gas, a carbon tax, nuclear, battery costs and the responsibilities of developing versus developed economies.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 5 different months, 2019 to 2020.
What Hacker News said
Strong rec acidburnNSA · 2019-03 · on “Cheap renewables won’t stop global warming (2018)”
This contains a link to the actual discussion [1] which I highly recommend watching. Bill demonstrates a sophisticated understanding of energy systems, guided by one of his favorite authors (Vaclav Smil) who recently wrote the incredible and humbling book, Energy and Civilization [2]. [1] [this video] [2] [LINK]
Recommends Reedx · 2019-04 · on “The Third Phase of Clean Energy Will Be Most Disruptive Yet”
Solar & wind are great, but no mention of nuclear? (look into Gen IV if concerned about nuclear's reputation) That's looking like what we need most of all if we want to seriously tackle the problem. If you're wondering why, Bill Gates argues a good case on why solar & wind are not enough: [this video]
Recommends Reedx · 2019-09 · on “Why California May Go Nuclear”
Here, Bill Gates has done the math: [this video] TLDW: Batteries are several orders of magnitude too expensive to solve the reliability problem or make things like steel and concrete.
Recommends Reedx · 2019-10 · on “Traveling Wave Reactor”
I didn't set up that strawman. They're too expensive for a lot more than that. Seriously, watch Bill's response to this and I'd be interested if you or anyone has a better answer: [this video]
Recommends aksss · 2020-06 · on “Britain has gone two months without burning coal to generate power”
The Gates Foundation is one of the leading US investors in new nuclear tech right now. That documentary gets into the details of what they're working on and the hurdles they have in bringing new tech online. For a quick digestible bit of Gates on nuclear, watch the following. The documentary explores a lot more about the reactors: [this video]
Cites smt1 · 2019-02 · on “New Reactor Designs for Revival of Nuclear Energy”
Interesting, Bill Gates recently had an interview where he talks about new reactor designs, including the traveling wave reactor (commercialized in a prototype phase by a company he founded - TerraPower): [this video]
Cites acidburnNSA · 2019-03 · on “Cheap renewables won’t stop global warming (2018)”
Bill mentions it at the 15 minute mark [1]. He says he's the biggest funder of various carbon capture technologies, liquids, solids, you name it. He then explains that it's 2 orders of magnitude non-economic and will have to be 10x the size of the current fossil industry to succeed at the rate people are saying is needed. [1] [this video]
Cites acidburnNSA · 2019-04 · on “U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Weren’t Built for Climate Change”
Phwew if only there was a reasoned thing to read on this topic. People on many sides of these issues are saying a lot very strongly that is in strong conflict, so it's not a great time to find something totally trustworthy. Most people agree with the consensus that nuclear and some renewables (wind/solar/hydro) are low carbon. Other renewables (biomass) are not low carbon. Then we quickly descend into a debate that effectively comes down to energy storage for the intermittent renewables vs. the cost of nuclear. Wind is at full power ~35% of the time in the US, solar is at full power ~25% of the time in the US. Recent nuclear builds in the US and Europe have been absolute boondoggles, though