Why Bill Gates Remains Hopeful about Innovative New Climate Solutions (gatesnotes.com) 64
Bill Gates argues that when it comes to climate change, "there are more reasons to be hopeful than many people realize — and it's not just that renewable energy sources like wind and solar are getting cheaper.
"And it's not just because many of the steps already taken to reduce carbon emissions are working: Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will probably peak in 2025." The main thing that makes me optimistic is all the innovation I'm seeing. As someone who has been funding climate solutions for years, I get to learn from ingenious scientists who are working on ideas that will help the world solve climate change. And their work makes me confident that innovation will help the world get on track to meet its climate goals.
Some people are skeptical when a technology person like me says innovation is the answer. And it's true that new tools aren't the only thing we need. But we won't solve the climate problem without them.
There are two reasons for this. First, we need to eliminate emissions from every sector of the economy. Although some behavior change will help, the world can't achieve its zero-emissions goals without inventing new ways of doing things. For example, the production of concrete and steel alone accounts for around 10 percent of the world's annual greenhouse gases, but right now, we don't have practical ways to make either one without releasing carbon dioxide.
The second reason is that, in a world with limited resources, innovations allow us to magnify the impact of our efforts... We couldn't solve the climate problem with existing technology even if we had unlimited resources — and, of course, we don't have unlimited resources. So we need to be as rigorous as possible about doing the most good with the funding that is available. In my view, that boils down to inventing and deploying new ways to cut emissions and to help people survive and thrive in a warming world.
Gates believes we're at "the beginning of a Clean Industrial Revolution" --pointing readers to Breakthrough Energy's recent State of the Transition Report for more details.
But Gates also provides some specific examples of optimism-fuleing breakthroughs"
"And it's not just because many of the steps already taken to reduce carbon emissions are working: Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will probably peak in 2025." The main thing that makes me optimistic is all the innovation I'm seeing. As someone who has been funding climate solutions for years, I get to learn from ingenious scientists who are working on ideas that will help the world solve climate change. And their work makes me confident that innovation will help the world get on track to meet its climate goals.
Some people are skeptical when a technology person like me says innovation is the answer. And it's true that new tools aren't the only thing we need. But we won't solve the climate problem without them.
There are two reasons for this. First, we need to eliminate emissions from every sector of the economy. Although some behavior change will help, the world can't achieve its zero-emissions goals without inventing new ways of doing things. For example, the production of concrete and steel alone accounts for around 10 percent of the world's annual greenhouse gases, but right now, we don't have practical ways to make either one without releasing carbon dioxide.
The second reason is that, in a world with limited resources, innovations allow us to magnify the impact of our efforts... We couldn't solve the climate problem with existing technology even if we had unlimited resources — and, of course, we don't have unlimited resources. So we need to be as rigorous as possible about doing the most good with the funding that is available. In my view, that boils down to inventing and deploying new ways to cut emissions and to help people survive and thrive in a warming world.
Gates believes we're at "the beginning of a Clean Industrial Revolution" --pointing readers to Breakthrough Energy's recent State of the Transition Report for more details.
But Gates also provides some specific examples of optimism-fuleing breakthroughs"
- "To reduce emissions, we need to replace the synthetic fertilizers that release nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas, when broken down by microbes in the soil; Pivot Bio has genetically modified microbes to provide plants with the nitrogen they need without the excess greenhouse gases that synthetic alternatives produce."
- "Cement and steel are two of the biggest sources of emissions in this category. Boston Metal is well on the way to making steel with electricity (which can be generated without emissions) instead of coal. CarbonCure and Ecocem have developed low-carbon processes for making cement, and Brimstone has a way to do it while actually removing carbon from the air."
- "Because of inefficient windows and gaps in what's known as the building envelope, as much as 40% of heated or cooled air leaks out of the typical building. If we can drive that number down, buildings will require less heating and cooling — which will substantially lower our emissions. Aeroseal has developed a polymer that can seal ducts and other crevices; more than a quarter of a million buildings in the U.S. and Canada are already using their product. Another company, Luxwall, has developed a window that's many times more efficient than the single-pane windows used in most buildings. And unlike double-paned windows, it's thin enough to replace single-paned glass without having to rebuild the frame."
Zero chance of FF peaking in 2025 (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Zero chance of FF peaking in 2025 (Score:5, Informative)
LICE vehicles??
I've had this debate over acronyms before and apparently "LICE" stands for "legacy internal combustion engine" as opposed to "HICE" which is "hybrid internal combustion engine", an acronym that is largely nonsense and easily confused with the far more common meaning of "hydrogen internal combustion engine".
I can look up LICE and HICE on Acronym Finder and I see nothing about hybrid or legacy.
https://www.acronymfinder.com/... [acronymfinder.com]
https://www.acronymfinder.com/... [acronymfinder.com]
I doubt that LICE and HICE will catch on as WindBourne defines them, not when there's already established terms of ICE and HEV to make the desired distinction. Hybrid electric vehicles are electric vehicles that have an internal combustion engine and a battery, capacitor, or some other source of electrical power paired with it to provide energy. A diesel locomotive is not an HEV because there's only one source for electricity to turn the wheels, and that is an internal combustion engine. Sometimes there's a need to distinguish between diesel-electric and diesel-mechanical locomotives, or whatever kind of vehicle is being discussed, but generally just referring to them as diesel or ICE is sufficient. If there's a rechargeable battery pack, "third rail" (in quotes because it is rare for a "third rail" to actually be a rail), solar PV panels, or some such to go with the internal combustion engine then it is an HEV, not "HICE". We can make further distinctions like PHEV for "plug-in hybrid electric vehicle" to emphasize that the alternative electric source is a rechargeable battery than something else such as a third rail, a distinction often made because too many people "spoiled" the meaning of HEV to refer to things like ICE-electric cars, locomotives, and ships when there is no source of electricity but an ICE and generator.
https://www.acronymfinder.com/... [acronymfinder.com]
https://www.acronymfinder.com/... [acronymfinder.com]
https://www.acronymfinder.com/... [acronymfinder.com]
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Indeed. And even if it did, that would already be too late to avoid a really, really bad outcome.
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one odd thing that I find interesting is that we continue to put up these expensive wind generators counting on the local wind pattern being the same, when in fact, most wind occurs from uneven heating of the earth's surface. But we are going to see more clouds in the sky as time goes on, and this will change the wind, and rain, patterns a great deal.
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That is only odd as long as you do not know how it is being done. Obviously, wind generator placement takes predictions into account and the climate models are really good now for the time-frame relevant. Also obviously, wind generators have a finite lifetime, in the range of 20-25 years. While climate change is already assured to be a global, long-term catastrophe, it is still a _slow_ catastrophe compared to the lifetime of a wind generator. Incidentally, they are not actually expensive, compared to the a
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And hence your attempt at doing propaganda against the currently cheapest source of energy (offshore wind) is exposed as what it is: A lie.
Offshore wind is the cheapest source of energy? Cheaper even than onshore wind? I'd like to see where you got that idea. Here's a Wikipedia page that cites a few sources that disagree with that statement: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Of the studies on the Wikipedia page the best case for onshore wind is from Lazard. One problem with the Lazard study is that it gives a single number than a range because the sample size is so small. Then there must be other issues with Lazard because every time I see
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Obviously, wind generator placement takes predictions into account and the climate models are really good now for the time-frame relevant.
ALL of the generators that have been put into place have been based on PAST historical readings. Not a single one is based on what the future holds. Why? Because even our models have been only good for short-term weather. No investor is going to count on climate models that do NOT account for winds. ANd no, not a SINGLE one of the climate models even consider local winds 20-50 years ago. They are doing well just to figure out OVERALL temp and precip 20-
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China is on track to peak in 2025. We just need to encourage other developing nations to follow their lead.
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You need to quit repeating the lies that are told by all of those ppl and simply look at the facts. Until NEW EVs and removing old ICE vehicles is greater than the number of new *ICE vehilces sold, then it will mean that emissions f
Bill Gates ... (Score:1, Troll)
... can burn in Hell.
Re:Bill Gates ... (Score:5, Funny)
Innovate, slashvertise, whoopdeewhoop (Score:2)
We've had solutions to AGW for decades. The people in control of the money don't want to implement them. Innovation is necessary, but doesn't mean things will happen.
Re:Not true (Score:4, Insightful)
(Also: There's a fair chance that we'll have fusion power in a decade or so.)
Even if we prove nuclear fusion power something workable in the next ten years we would still be something like 30 years from this being something we would see as making a dent in our use of existing energy sources. Consider what it took to get nuclear fission to be something we used in any meaningful quantity, or even wind and water.
Around about 1945 we proved that we could get more energy out of nuclear fission than we put in. Around about 1955 we started making nuclear powered submarines and making steps to civil nuclear power. In 1965 we started to see something that barely approximated some standardized nuclear power plants. By 1975 we finally saw nuclear power plants getting built in large numbers that there was any expectation that it could replace coal as an energy source. Then of course around about 1985 came a bunch of fear, uncertainty, and doubt around nuclear fission with Three Mile Island in recent memory and Chernobyl blowing its top.
So, once we had much of the physics figured out around about 1945 it took another 30 years of building and testing to figure out what worked and what didn't. Even then about a decade later a series of accidents, some idiots working people up to fear the technology, and economic factors (natural gas getting cheap for one), made nuclear fission no longer the champion it used to be. Today nuclear fusion is about where nuclear fission was in the 1920s and 1930s, maybe 1940s, where we know some basics on how it works but still haven't figured a whole host of engineering challenges to get more out than we put in. Once we get more out than we put in we'd have to spend 10 years building large prototypes, kind of like Shippingport in the 1950s, to get some real world data for the next iteration. Then when fusion has its version of Shippingport might come its versions of Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, all considered "second generation" nuclear even though its more complicated than that. We started to see what is considered "third generation" nuclear power around about 1985, reactors with much better safety systems and simplified construction that lowered costs significantly but with the haters laying second generation problems at the feet of third generation systems that put the development of the technology on hold for something like 40 years.
How do we know that fusion won't face the same problems that nuclear fission faced? If we get the haters to stop equating nuclear weapons with nuclear fission energy then maybe they won't equate nuclear fusion energy with nuclear weapons. But if that hurdle of FUD is cleared then that makes a clear path for future fission energy development. With a clear path for nuclear fission then what does nuclear fusion offer to want to make that something to rely upon for energy in the future? It's not like we are going to run out of fission fuel anytime soon, or that fusion fuel is easier to mine and refine.
We've had the solutions for AGW since the 1940s, we just needed to bring them to mass production. We almost got half that solution in place in about 30 years with nuclear fission, the other half being synthesis of hydrocarbon fuels to make carbon neutral transportation fuels a reality. Synthesized fuels were figured out in the 1920s, developed into something that could be industrialized in the 1930s, and by the 1940s the Germans were using synthesized fuels with regularity. Development of the petroleum industry made the process no longer attractive for much of the world but it never went away completely. With greater concern of AGW and international trade of petroleum we are seeing more interest in synthesized fuels again, and using nuclear fission to power the process. If we start in earnest today to bring these technologies to mass production we'd likely make AGW something children read about in history books. If we wait for nuclear fusion to save us then we'd likely still see A
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The timescales involved in building new nuclear fission plants are the reason we can't rely on them to deal with climate change.
Your timeline seems a bit off, by the way. Maybe that's how it played out in the US. In Europe we had already realized that nuclear was a money pit by the late 70s. It wasn't Chernobyl that turned us off nuclear, it was the massively increasing costs and failed new wonder designs that were supposed to fix all the problems. The UK has its infamous Magnox reactors, for example.
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The timescales involved in building new nuclear fission plants are the reason we can't rely on them to deal with climate change.
Then why the announcement during COP28 to triple global nuclear power capacity by 2050? If they expect this to do nothing to deal with global warming then why bother?
https://www.energyconnects.com... [energyconnects.com]
Your timeline seems a bit off, by the way.
I didn't mean to be entirely accurate with the dates, that is why I repeatedly qualified the dates with "around about". The point was to demonstrate that each step in the process took 10 years or so. This time line was likely rushed because of Cold War tensions, petroleum embargoes, and perhaps other issues
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Not even close to being true.
Only insomuch as it's probably not possible to come up with an economic system which still functions properly after creating all the money needed for the AGW solutions out of new taxes and/or thin air.
Despite Mr. Gates' insistence to the contrary, given an unlimited budget you certainly could solve all of these problems. For starters, if economics isn't an issue, nuclear fission is back on the menu. There's your power solution. Additionally, operating in "money cheat mode" means there's no longer any foo
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For starters, if economics isn't an issue, nuclear fission is back on the menu.
In many ways that is what is happening.
The UK commissioned studies years ago on what options they had for energy, and what came from that was a report that made it quite clear that they needed more nuclear power or the lights would go out. That explains why they are so adamant on finishing HPC in spite of the rising costs, and continuing with plans for more nuclear power at Sizewell and Moorside. The UK is taking nuclear power so seriously in spite of the costs that they are clearing a path for nuclear po
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I see somebody desperately claiming he isn't responsible for the problem he is still contributing to.
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Try again. Your audience is not _that_ stupid, even if you may be.
Re: Innovate, slashvertise, whoopdeewhoop (Score:1)
If you're going to be quippy at least make sense mate
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I doubt that either those 2 even really care. If they did, they would push to solve things, and not just post a bunch of garbage.
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Yep. Who cares about the future of the race when a buck is to be made.
Absolutely no way (Score:2)
One possibility is he’s still thinking like the CEO of an OS company. It
Re: Absolutely no way (Score:2)
Or, he is and has always been an opportunist and wants to copy someone elseâ(TM)s shitty solutions and market the shit out of them and then when he gains the upper hand he then goes out to tell government to shape the market as he sees fit.
Bill Gates has done more to delay true innovation in the computer markets than anyone else simply by convincing governments he was a genius and then stuffing monstrosities like Excel or ActiveX down our throats whenever we needed to interact with government services.
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Peak Is Always Right Around the Corner (Score:2)
"And it's not just because many of the steps already taken to reduce carbon emissions are working: Carbon emissions from fossil fuels will probably peak in 2025."
Yeah, I'm sure you have it all figured out this time.
https://news.slashdot.org/stor... [slashdot.org]
The peak oil wikipedia article has been one of the more amusing ones to follow for a while:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] [wikipedia.org]
Figure 1: What we propagandized to you for decades and hoped to influence public policy with.
Figure 2: How pants-shittingly wrong we were.
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Peak Oil(tm) was more related to production maxing out, not usage. Gates is looking at it from another angle: that usage itself will fall off without necessarily being triggered by a supply shortage.
Not saying his dates are correct but there is a difference.
"More reasons to be hopeful than people realize" (Score:1)
Hopeful... or indifferent? (Score:1)
Let's be honest, if I was as rich and old as him, why would I give half a fuck about whether climate solutions work? By the time the climate goes bonkers I'll be dead, and in the meantime I can stave off any effect it may have on me with money.
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Judgement awaits after death. Some folks realize this and try to change in the hopes of staving off the Judge. I read it in a book.
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I read that book too, but it's kinda bad. The main protagonist is an insufferable Mary Sue.
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May want to get better reading material there...
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I did. It was called "The Great & Secret Show"
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Let's be honest, if I was as rich and old as him, why would I give half a fuck about whether climate solutions work?
I'm assuming you've probably used Windows at some point, right? Mr. Gates probably wants to be remembered for something better than starting the company which released that abomination onto the world. That's a problem with being famous as a consequence of wealth: there's that whole the legacy you leave behind thing.
Now if you're just rich because you earned it playing the stock market or something and nobody knows who you are? Live it up for today, few people will remember you one way or the other anyway
In other words... (Score:2)
"Keep consuming! Everything will be fine."
You see this a lot among people who make their living from owning things. If a problem exists, just throw money at it. It's all they know how to do. Doesn't mean it will work, but they have to believe that it will.
Finally some talk about fission and mitigation (Score:2)
Bill Gates mentions battery-electric cargo ships but I doubt that is going to happen any time soon. One big problem is that batteries take a lot space and weigh plenty for the energy they store. This will impact the amount of cargo that a ship can carry. Ships can in general be as big as they like because the sea doesn't put any practical limits on the size of things that float, but locks and canals put limits on the size of ships.
As an example of limits on the size of ships we saw in the period leading
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For those of you who aren't familiar with the units, one knot is one nautical mile per hour, and a nautical mile is larger than the statute mile used on land. As a fairly close rule of thumb, 8 knots equals 9 miles per hour, and that ship making 10 knots is moving along at 11.2 mph, or, almost 269 miles per day. Also, I find it inte
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Also, I find it interesting that the nuclear ship is making 35 knots because that's the maximum speed of the Iowa class battleships back in WW II.
I didn't pick that speed at random, 35 knots is the maximum speed of a lot of ships since World War One. The latest and greatest nuclear powered aircraft carriers are rumored to max out at about 35 knots, with the actual maximum speed being a protected military secret. I don't know if there is something special about 35 knots that so few watercraft exceed that speed, and the ones that do are often very small or at least are small compared to anything nuclear powered today. A "go-fast" or "cigar" boat can
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The speed of a ship is depending on 3 factors, and the power source has nothing to do with it. I should have answered to your parent, but he likes to give troll answers, so I answer to you :P
Factor one: glider or displacement based ship. Or even a hydrofoil? (Or: ground effect "airplane")
Factor two: length of the boat?
Factor three: submarine or surface vessel?
Ground effect "airplanes" are not interesting as they are not touching the water ... but by most legislations they are boats, requiring a skipper lic
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It's really a shame that you messed up such a well-written post by using the wrong word there. The proper term for marine applications is "screw."
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And how should I know you call it screw :P
It seems the term propellor is widely used: https://web.mit.edu/2.016/www/... [mit.edu]
However in German we call it "Schraube" aka Screw :P sometimes I make the mistake to laterally translate a German term into English ...
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Well, it seems screw is used for small boats.
And propellor is used for big things.
No idea though.
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One big problem is that batteries take a lot space and weigh plenty for the energy they store. This will impact the amount of cargo that a ship can carry.
Perhaps you should look at a construction plan of a ship.
And then take a dictionary and check what the word "ballast" means.
Depending how the world is shifting, I guess methanol powered fuel cells are helpful in sailing, and actual sails, or kites, too.
Re: Finally some talk about fission and mitigation (Score:2)
Is your idea to just jettison the batteries in the ocean when they need to adjust the ballast? Perhaps you should understand what ballast is and why sails have long been removed for engine powered ships.
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No, the idea is that batteries get recharged.
No idea what your comment is about.
And regarding sails: no sails are long added again to engine powered ships. Especially kites.
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Dead batteries don't lose appreciable weight. Again, what is ballast, it's not just dead weight in the bottom of a ship. It is adjustable, for good reason.
Billionaire plugs his latest investments (Score:2)
What could the reasons of a modern robber baron be (Score:2)
A wealthy investor couldn't possibly promote monopolistic wunderwaffen that would also increase his legacy score.
Solutions, plural? (Score:2)
I am only reading about a single, solitary solution here - reducing greenhouse gases, albeit by different methods.
Unless and until we realize this is a futile path that will be too little, too late, we are stuck in our own trapped thinking.
Come, let me hear some other solutions!
Bill Gates is (Score:3)
Did Bill Gates say that (Score:2)
anagram (Score:2)
I just plugged "Bill Gates" into my anagram generator, and it came out as "rich idiot".