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Innovating to zero! | Bill Gates

TED · 4.7M views · 2010-02-20 · 29:33

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Overview

Bill Gates' TED2010 talk on the energy future, arguing for zero global carbon emissions by 2050 and the need for energy miracles. He explains why he is backing a different type of nuclear reactor.

On Hacker News

HN mostly cites it in nuclear power debates as Gates making the case that nuclear is needed for clean energy, with a few critical references to his views on population.

Recommended by 1 HN people across 1 months · HN mentions 2011–2025

Topics

Nuclear power & fusionClimate policy, solutions & debate
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nuclear powerclimate changecarbon emissionsted talkbill gates

What people said

vayarajesh · 2016-10 · Recommendation

TED talk - Elon musk - [LINK] D10 conference - Steve jobs and Bill gates - [LINK] TED talk - Bill gates (Innovation to Zero) - [VIDEO]

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huijzer · 2025-11 · Criticism

Sorry, I didn’t double check indeed. I posted the wrong TED talk from him, see [1] at 4:21. There he says we need to limit climate change by limiting population growth. I think this is quite a hypocritical stance from someone who flies private jet all year. [1]: [VIDEO]

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carlhjerpe · 2022-04 · Reference

Your comment loses it's value when you're trying to poke all the holes. > Storage is also plunging in cost, and additional technologies are already in commercial use (iron flow, for example.) > HVDC transmission is spreading, with higher capacity, lower cost, and higher efficiency for moving electricity greater distances (in other words, it's less of a deal if it's really windy in one spot and not in another, and ideally-suited wind sites can be further from where electricity is needed.) How do you transform DC up and down? By converting it to AC. Running it through a transformer and converting it back, HVDC isn't gonna take over the world, certain stretches might be HVDC where beneficial but not all over the world. The difference with nuclear is that anyone can build and operate next-gen storage, so you're commercial right out the door. I could hook my UPS up to the grid and feed back, commercial success! > Wind and solar are as distributable and scaleable as you want. Not without storage, which is harder to scale than production of other kinds. > You don't need to worry about geological stability with wind and solar. I don't see the USP, there are plenty of geologically stable areas in most countries. > Wind and solar don't require tens or hundreds of megawatts of cold-start / post-operation (cooling) power. They have the added downside of only producing power when the weather guy says so. > Wind/solar don't generate waste that is weaponizeable. Good point, for now. > You d

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Sources

Video by TED, played through YouTube.

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