Stanford ENERGY
3 HN recommenders · recommended in 7 months, 2019–2020
36:12 · 288K views · Dec 2, 2018
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.
Cited in energy threads for Gates's argument on why batteries and renewables alone fall short and nuclear is needed.
13 comments from Hacker News
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]
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
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
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
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.