by Agence France-Presse
Bill GatesPhoto: magnifynetLONG
BEACH, Calif. – Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates on Friday strayed from his
philanthropic focus on fighting poverty and disease to address another threat
to the world’s poor—climate change.
“Energy
and climate are extremely important to these people,” Gates on Friday told
a TED Conference audience
packed with influential figures, including the founders of Google and climate
champion Al Gore. “The climate getting worse means many years that crops
won’t grow from too much rain or not enough, leading to starvation and
certainly unrest.”
He
broke down variables in a carbon-dioxide-culprit formula, homing in on a
conclusion that the answer to the problem of climate change is a source of
energy that produces no carbon.
“The
formula is a very straightforward one,” Gates said. “More carbon
dioxide equals temperature increase equals negative effects like collapsed
ecosystems. We have to get to zero.”
To
dramatize his point, Gates pulled out a large jar of fireflies in playful
flashback to when he unleashed mosquitoes on a TED audience a year earlier
while discussing battling malaria. “They won’t bite,” Gates joked of
the fireflies. “As a matter of fact, they might not even leave this
jar.”
Gates
said he is backing development of TerraPower reactors that could be fueled by nuclear waste from disposal facilities or
generated by today’s power plants.
Gates
touted TerraPower as more reliable than wind or solar, cleaner than burning
coal or natural gas, and safer than current nuclear plants.
“With
the right materials approach it could work,” Gates said. “Because you
burn 99 percent of the waste, it is kind of like a candle.” Nuclear waste
fed into a TerraPower reactor would potentially burn for decades before being
exhausted.
“Today
we are always refueling the reactor so lots of controls and lots of things that
can go wrong,” Gates said. “That is not good. With this, you have a
piece of fuel, think of it like a log, that burns for 60 years and it is
done.”
Researching
and testing TerraPower will cost hundreds of millions of dollars, with the
building of a test reactor likely to cost in the billions.
Once
the technology is proven, market forces will drive down costs, Gates predicted.
Work
on TerraPower has been done in France and Japan, and there has been interest in
India, Russia, China, and the United States, according to the famed
philanthropist.
Gates
said that if he were allowed a single wish in the coming 50 years, it would be
a global “zero carbon” culture.
“We
need energy miracles. The microprocessor and internet are miracles. This is a
case where we have to drive and get the miracle in a short timeline.”
Gates
dismissed climate-change skeptics, saying TerraPower would render arguments
moot because the energy produced would be cheaper than pollution-spewing
methods used today. “The skeptics will accept it because it is
cheaper,” Gates said. “They might wish it did put out CO2, but they
will take it.”
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